


More Things In Heaven And Earth

by CloudCover (RainyForecast)



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: ASL, Alternate Universe, Cultural Differences, Gift Giving, Languages and Linguistics, M/M, Marking, Mer-people, Research, Whales, scientists - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 18:29:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 23,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16665994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyForecast/pseuds/CloudCover
Summary: The hydrophones have been picking up nonsense for the past three days and Zhenya has had it up to here, honestly.





	1. Chapter 1

                                                           

 

 

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,   
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.   
**- _Hamlet_  (1.5.167-8)**

* * *

 

 

The hydrophones have been picking up nonsense for the past three days and Zhenya has had it up to _here_ , honestly.  

He pulls his bulky headphones off and leans back, wincing at the alarming creak of his battered office chair. Maybe if they can get another grant they can finally get some office furniture that isn’t falling apart.

A pipe dream, as it now seems they’re going to have to scrounge up some new audio equivalent, fucking hell. He glares mulishly at the [ spectrogram ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tRMqbPH_pk), willing it to look more like a normal humpback whale vocalization recording.

“S’up G?” Letang asks, closing the screen door to the office with a bang. He’s casually eating a banana with one hand, and is fixing his hair with the other. He drops himself into the other office chair and kicks his feet up on top of a stack of Zhenya’s printouts.

“Recordings from last three days are complete _pizdets,”_ Zhenya says, glaring. “Feet off my fucking papers.”

“Damn, G. Who pissed in your cornflakes?” Letang drawls, but takes his feet off the desk. “And how, pray tell exactly, are they ‘ _pizdets_ ’?”

“Finally get good position to pick up sounds I’m want. Then there is, interference maybe, all over the audio. Don’t know what is. Radio signal, maybe. Or sound through boat hull? Fucking weird.”

“Weird, huh?” Letang perks up. “Liiike, undiscovered species weird?”

Zhenya makes a dismissive noise,and cues up one of the clearest clips. “All I’m know is ruin three days of recording, and maybe Ma— H-183 will go calve somewhere else.”

“Shouldn’t name the whales, man, it’s bad science,” Letang says, grinning.

“I don’t,” Zhenya grumbles, even though he’s definitely been calling the very pregnant H-183 “Magda” for weeks. He’s been satellite tracking her since she left the waters off Labrador.

He’s hoping to publish a paper on the vocalizations of pregnant and nursing North Atlantic Humpbacks. He gets teased that he just chose the topic so he can spend his time mooning over baby whales. Which is rich, considering the cooing he’s caught Letang and Fleury doing over his research materials. The French Canadians are here on behalf of The University of New Brunswick, doing research on coral.

The point is, there is a fair amount of work done studying male humpback vocalizations: chiefly of their mysterious songs. But females vocalize too, even if they don’t sing. Zhenya wants to study the communication between mothers and newborns. And to do that, he needs his equipment to fucking function. He can’t miss this window of opportunity. Magda— damn it, _H-183_ , has completed her annual migration from the cold waters of the Maritimes to the clear warm seas of the Dominican Republic's Silver Bank to have the calf she’s been gestating for nearly a year.

“Here,” he tells Letang, handing him the headphones. “Listen.” Letang puts them on, and Zhenya presses play. Letang’s look of unconcerned indifference melts into intense, puzzled focus as he listens.

The clip ends, and Letang leans back, slowly. “What the fuck, man.”

Zhenya groans, and rakes his fingers through his hair. “I know. Fucking weird. I’m tell you.”

“Uh huh,“ Letang says, staring into space. “Play it again. You say you have more of this?”

They listen for long minutes, trying to parse the sounds. They’re deeply strange. They almost sound like muffled human voices, which is why Zhenya first thought that maybe the hydrophones were picking up radio. Maybe. He’s not a sound engineer, he doesn’t know if that’s possible. The sounds, though, are so distorted and strange that it’s hard to imagine them coming from a normal radio. There are clicks and buzzes and pops, and even the parts that sound almost human are nothing like words, follow no recognizable patterns of speech.

Letang and he share a glance. The look on Letang’s face is making a cold, prickly feeling spread from Zhenya’s stomach to the rest of his body. He’d dismissed the strangeness of the sounds, hadn’t paid enough attention to it. Explained it away. Letang’s incredulous seriousness is… kind of freaking Zhenya out. Making him think this _is_ something, after all. Not just distorted radio signals. And if it’s not that, then—

“You know what this almost reminds me of,” Letang says, still frowning into the middle distance. “What’s that one African language, the one with the clicks?”

“Xhosa,” Zhenya supplies. “No, it’s not like that. Listen.” There’s a long, almost metallic _whrrrrrrr_ from the recording, followed by a series of clicks, then three deep whooping noises that would almost sound like whalesong, except they aren’t nearly loud enough. And are a completely wrong frequency.

“We should go back out there,” Letang says, slowly. “Put the hydrophones in again. See what we get. Can’t hurt. You need to get more recordings anyway, right? The coral can wait a day or two, it’s not going anywhere.” He smirks at his own joke.

Zheya nods, and stares once again at the spectrograms. They aren’t an annoyance anymore. Now they’re unsettling. That cold, prickly prey instinct is still settled in his bones, and he’s so, so glad Letang is coming out with him tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

They’re up before dawn, hauling gear onto the boat in the pre-sunrise murk. Zhenya checks and double checks the audio equipment, and checks and double checks his data on where Magda— _H-183_ has been spending her time.

Letang has roped Fleury into the expedition as well, and even a couple of the undergrads. Zach and Dominik are yawning and sleep-rumpled, but seem pretty thrilled about the entire affair.

“I am hoping it’s some kind of new species,” Dominik says, his lilting Czech accent even thicker this early in the morning.

“Dude, right??” enthuses Zach, clapping his hands on Dominik’s shoulders and rocking him gently back and forth. “I’ll name it after you, bro.”

“Aw, thanks.”

Zhenya laughs to himself a little. He still can’t figure out if they’re actually together or are just super close bros. Not that it matters, really. It’s cute either way.

“Equipment look good?” Letang asks him, leaning over to peer at the hydrophone cables Zhenya is rearranging.

Zhenya shrugs. It’s as good as it’s going to get. Letang claps him on the shoulder, goes to start the engine.

 

* * *

  

It takes them until the sun is up over the horizon to find Magda, but they see her spout before they even have to drop the hydrophones in to listen. Letang cuts the engine, and they drift closer.

Zhenya watches the arch of Magda’s massive back as she slides back under the water. One reason he chose her to study is that she has a deep, distinctive scar digging into her dorsal ridge, probably from getting tangled in commercial fishing nets when she was younger. It makes identifying her at a distance easier.

He drops in one of the hydrophones, and everyone stops what they’re going to crowd around Zhenya’s laptop. At first there’s nothing, just crackling static and water sounds. Magda isn’t making any noise.

Then, a few faint sounds, probably male humpbacks singing miles away. Things quiet again. Zach starts to say something but Fleury shushes him. Time crawls on.

Magda gifts them with some sounds about an hour in,  a couple of low, rumbling “whops” that make Zhenya smile.

_“Hi, pretty girl_ ,” he croons at the computer as he notes the timestamp so he can isolate the clip later. Letang wants to make a rude comment, he knows, but thankfully decides to be an adult and restrains himself.

Magda is staying is approximately the same area, as indicated by the spray she sends up when she surfaces to breathe. She’s probably close enough to observe underwater and Zhenya eyes the diving gear they brought along. He’s never actually been in the water with her.

Another of the deep “whop”s from the whale, and then everyone jumps when the strange alien sounds Zhenya had recorded before suddenly crackle through the laptop speakers. A long “whrrrr,” then the same pattern of clicks as on the previous recording.

“ _Tabernak_ ,” Letang breathes. “Geno, you’re sure this isn’t the whale?”

Zhenya shakes his head. “Sure. Wrong frequency. Not anything recorded from humpbacks before.”

“Is someone gonna go take a look?” Zach asks quietly looking simultaneously excited and terrified someone is going to ask him to do it.

“I’ll go,” Geno says. “If nothing, still can record visual observation of Magda.”

_Magda_ Letang mouths at Fleury. Seriously, invertebrate specialists. Assholes, all of them. He goes to ready his scuba gear, leaving the rest of them clustered around the laptop, listening to the noises still issuing from it.

 

* * *

  

When the bubbles from his entry into the water clear, Zhenya almost spits out his regulator in surprise at how close Magda is. The current must have drifted the boat towards her. She’s about fifty meters or less away, drifting motionless mid level in the water column. It’s shallow and clear enough here that he can just make out the bottom, far beneath them both, patches of white sand and darker coral.

She’s so beautiful. Seeing her like this brings new awareness of the sheer size of her. Zhenya can make out the movement of one huge, intelligent eye as she notes his appearance in her realm but doesn’t move. She’s conserving all her energy for the monumental task of delivering her calf into the world.

One pectoral flipper arcs majestically as she keeps herself steady in the water. Zhenya’s chest feels tight with emotion and his eyes water inside his mask. There she is, after all these months. The hope of her embattled species, heavy with the future.

He’s so overcome that he forgets for a moment that he’s supposed to be looking for something else. He turns in a slow circle, keeping in position with slow kicks of his scuba fins. Nothing. Just an infinity of blue, and Magda’s graceful bulk. He makes sure his GoPro is recording in its waterproof housing, and wonders if it will bother her if he ventures just a little bit closer. Just a bit. Can’t hurt, if she’s so calm even with the boat so close.

He makes it maybe a dozen yards closer when he sees something move beneath her, too large to be a remora or some other kind of hitchhiking fish. His first thought is that maybe she had her baby already after all, and then it swims out from under her shadow and comes toward him. And

 

It’s

 

There’s a deep, instinctual terror that comes when what you’re seeing does not connect with what your instinct know to be true. A cold, all consuming flash of sensation as your brain screams “WRONG, THIS IS WRONG” at you. Something left to center of reality. Something moving in a way that it shouldn’t.

Zhenya feels it now, as a figure glides toward him, with smooth, powerful stokes of its.

His. His tail.

Geno’s camera drops from his nerveless fingers.

He doesn’t look like the creatures of myth and legend, at least, not completely. His tail doesn’t sparkle with scales, but has the dull sheen of a shark’s skin. A darker color it’s hard to make out under the water fades to pale skin at his waist. He has short dark hair that floats about his face like a cloud, and he snarls at Zhenya, baring sharp canine teeth like an otter’s.

The… merman’s….throat works and jumps, and past the rushing of the blood in his own ears and the hiss of his air supply Zhenya’s can hear sounds like the ones on the recording. A language. His mouth is closed, he doesn’t seem to need to open it to speak.

Deep beneath the animal panic engulfing his brain, the scientist in Zhenya is fascinated.

The merman makes an angry, aggressive gesture, and that’s when Zhenya notices that he’s carrying a wicked looking weapon with a long, curved blade. It has to be made from bone, the handle wrapped in what looks, surprisingly, like nylon rope.

_Lost fishing gear and nets_ the scientific corner of Zhenya’s brain supplies.

The merman’s eyes flick downwards, and he gives Zhenya another baleful look as he dives downwards.

Zhenya follows him with his gaze. You don’t turn your back on a predator, says the prey instinct part of his brain. You don’t turn your back on something so incredible, says the scientist part. Incredible. The word is inadequate and colorless.

Up the merman comes, the muscular undulation of his body and his tail just as eerie and just as beautiful as before. He’s got something clutched in his free hand, Zhenya sees. It’s the GoPro. The merman shakes it at him, scowling, a burst of noise coming from his throat.

Zhenya isn’t sure what he wants. He doesn’t move except to kick his fins to keep himself in position. How much air does he have left? How long has he been down here?

Without thinking, he reaches a hand out towards the camera in the merman’s hand. The merman flinches away, then moves closer, staring at Zhenya’s hand, his arm. Zhenya is wearing a wetsuit, but no diving gloves. The merman reaches out his own hand. His fingers are webbed. His hand closes over Zhenya’s wrist, and Zhenya can feel the iron strength in it.

_Is he going to drown me_ he thinks. _Am I going to die right now?_

He tugs his arm, panicked, trying to pull it toward himself. A flood of bubbles escape around his regulator and he must scream or make some kind of sound around it, because the merman drops his hand, and lets him go.

Humpbacks hunt with bubble nets, he suddenly remembers. Or use them in dominance displays. What does the merman think the bubbles from his air tank and the hissing sound of his artificially aided breath mean?

He takes a deep gulp of air and pulls the regulator from his mouth. The merman visibly startles. Zhenya almost wants to laugh. Does he think Zhenya just detached some part of his body?

The merman peers at him, leaning in so close Zhenya can see the color of his eyes. Not quite green. Not quite gold.

Zhenya’s lungs are burning. He has to get the regulator back in his mouth. He fumbles it, and with a gasp, sweet oxygen trickles back into his lungs. He kicks his fins to back away, put some distance between the merman and himself.

To his surprise, the merman holds out the GoPro, head tilted in a way that feels very human. Zhenya reaches out again, and takes the camera from him. For some reason he can’t fathom himself (besides possible hysteria) he gives the merman a thumbs up. The merman blinks, then copies the gesture.

Zhenya lets loose a burst of bubbles in an aborted shout of overwrought laughter. A merman just gave him a thumbs up. Belatedly, he tilts the camera at him, sweeps it from his head to the flukes of his tail. Zhenya won’t believe that this actually happened if he doesn’t manage to record _something_.

The merman startles, then turns around. Over his shoulder, Zhenya can see that Magda has turned, immense tail moving in a slow downwards stroke as she decides she’s had enough of whatever the two of them are up to. The merman looks between her and Zhenya, eyes narrowed in mistrust, but then must decide that while Zhenya is a conundrum, he has more important things to do. He turns and follows the whale, looking back at Zhenya a few more times until they disappear into the blue.

Suddenly Zhenya is panicked for air, and sun, and a solid surface under his feet. He kicks up towards the dark shape of the boat above wondering what the fuck he’s going to do now.

 

* * *

 

As soon as he’s hauled back on the boat by his colleagues he’s tearing at the straps of his gear, yanking his mask from his face as he gasps for air. He flails out of his BC and his fins, ignoring the alarmed questioning of his colleges and waving off their help, He lies back on the deck and closes his eyes, clutching the GoPro and trying to get his breathing to quiet and return to normal.

When he finally pulls himself to a sitting position, everyone is staring at him.

“We...heard a lot of that noise through the hydrophone,” Fleury says. “What happened?”

Zhenya shakes his head. “You won’t believe me until you see video,” he says, and their eyes all go wide. He ignores another barrage of questions and just points at the boat’s wheelhouse. “Let’s go back. I need to think.”

They give him looks the entire ride back, but he just wraps his arms around his knees and tries to decide what to do.

 

* * *

 

As soon as they get back, secure the boat, and make it back to their research office, Zhenya inserts the Gopro’s SD card into the reader with shaking hands. The footage downloads, and everyone clusters around his computer.

Zhenya watches it in a fog, as everyone around him cries out, swears, and babbles as the merman swims out from behind Magda. When the camera falls, the mount it was on weighs it down in such a way that it continues to point upwards, and Zhenya watches himself and the merman silhouetted against the light of the surface.

He stays silent as they ask him how he got the camera back, then yell when the merman comes and picks it up. The footage continues to play, swinging wildly until the point that Zhenya regains control of it, sweeps it along the entire length of the merman’s body.

When the merman and the whale disappear and the footage ends, they all look as pale and shell-shocked as Zhenya. They look at each other in silence.

Zhenya isn’t certain of anything anymore. Except two things.

One. They aren’t telling anyone about this.

And two. He’s going right back out there tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

                                                    

 

 

 

Zhenya gets up and goes to the fridge in the communal kitchen and pulls out six beers. He thinks they belong to those pricks from the University of Pennsylvania but right now he can’t be bothered to care about the passive aggressive post it notes he’s going to find plastered all over the fridge tomorrow.

He carries the beers into his office and passes them out, ignoring the confused hubbub of four inquiring, scientific brains kicking into high gear.

“Shut up for minute,” he says. “Let me talk. Need to be able to say right in English.”

Thankfully, they listen. Zhenya turns his bottle around in his hands as he gathers his thoughts.

“We don’t tell  _ anyone _ about this,” he says, and it’s an order, heavy and final. “We don’t tell, unless he understand what it mean for us to tell and he say yes. We keep secret. No telling friends, no telling family. None of us ever getting drunk in public anymore. Finished. Can’t take chance we forget and say something.”

He stares them all down, waits for them to nod in acceptance. The kids look almost scared.

“You’re talking about consent,” Fleury says slowly. “From the merman.”

Zhenya nods. “Have to be reason nobody see them for sure until now.”

They’re all silent for a moment, thinking about the all-consuming fears they all live with as marine scientists. The environmental threats that keep them awake at night.

“Consent implies communication,” Letang says finally. “You’re, what? Going to teach him English? Or Russian, I guess.”

Zhenya shakes his head. “If I even find him again, won’t use speaking.”

“Then what?” Dominik asks.

“Camera didn’t show,” Zhenya explains. “But after he give back to me, my brain freeze little bit? I do this.” He makes a “thumbs up” gesture, and laughs a little at himself. “Not know what else to do. And he make confuse face, but then, he do it back to me.”

“He  _ what _ ?” Zach yelps, and the noisy discourse starts back up again and Zhenya lets it wash over him until he hears the phrase “but how can you even prove sentience” and he snaps.

“He sentient. I’m  _ know _ . You didn’t see him, I do. I look right in his eyes.”

“That’s not exactly scienti—“

“I believe you,” Fleury interjects. “Not everything can be explained by soulless measuring. Sometimes you just know something’s true. And with a language that complex? Fuck, man.” Zhenya smiles gratefully at him.

“So?” Dominik asks, practically vibrating in his seat. “How do we talk to him? You were gonna say.”

“Sign language,” Zhenya says. “Going to look up tonight. I’m going out early tomorrow morning. I have satellite tag on Magda. Maybe if we find her, we find him too.”

“We should go, get something to eat, get some gear together, and meet back here to plan for tomorrow,” Letang decides. “Three hours.”

They adjourn. Zhenya goes to to shower off the salt drying tacky on his skin. Feeling more like himself, he sets up his laptop on his cluttered desk, thanking his lucky stars that he’s senior enough to warrant his own room in the guesthouse his university manages. The undergrads are six to a room, sometimes.

He spends the rest of the time left until their meeting making notes and watching videos of sign language on YouTube and coming to the irritated conclusion that due to their proximity to the United States he’s probably going to need to use ASL and not РЖЯ. Stupid English.

When they regroup, the kids have scrounged up a laminator from god knows where and are bickering about what would be most “communicatively efficient” to make waterproof. Letang is sent off to refuel the boat and prep her for tomorrow, and Fleury sits down with Zhenya and a laptop to practice sign language.

“I can see why you’ve chosen to go with ASL,” Fleury says. “But fuck English, eh?”

“Yes,” Zhenya agrees fervently. “So much.”

 

* * *

 

 

They set out the next morning when the sky is still dark. Zhenya is nervy with excitement. It takes him three tries to access the data from the ADB tag he’d placed on Magda in Labrador, hands shaking. He marvels at the good luck he’s had; the tag is still in place, and is still transmitting. The system beeps at him. The tag transmits its location three to four times per 24 hour cycle, and it looks like the last ping wasn’t far from where Magda had been the day before. She’s still conserving energy.

By the time they reach the general area she’s in, the sky is shell-pink, with a few clouds lit up bright tangerine by the rising sun. The kids get out binoculars, and start scanning the endless water for Magda’s spout. The water is calm and glassy, and Zhenya is grateful for it.

He helps Fleury with the hydrophones since Zhenya’s the most familiar with their use, and double checks his diving gear. He’s not sure he wants to use it, though. He wants to know if just appearing in a wetsuit, snorkel, mask, and fins will affect the merman’s behavior. Maybe Zhenya will look less alien, less threatening, without a hissing, bubbling tank of air on his back. He’s not much of a freediver. Well. No time like the present to get better at it.

Zach whoops from where he’s perched on top of the wheelhouse. “Thar she blows!” he yells, in a terrible old-timey sailor accent. Zhenya leaps to his feet, straining his eyes to see. The feed from the hydrophones crackles with a high noise, like air being let out of a gigantic balloon. But, melodically.  

_ “Hi sweetheart _ ,” he tells Magda.   _ “How is my beautiful lady today?” _

Predictably, Letang scoffs, but Fleury leans into Zhenya’s space conspiratorially. “He talks to the coral samples we grow in the lab,” he tells Zhenya, with a devilish grin. “He has little nicknames in his notes for his favorite varieties. And he almost got into a fistfight at a conference with this world-renowned algae expert about how much funding is going to their respective fields. Don’t listen to a word he says.”

Zhenya laughs, and when Letang looks back to see what they’re talking about, he pastes an exaggerated look of innocence on his face. Take that, Letang.

 

* * *

 

 

They approach Magda as closely as they dare. Zhenya pulls on a mask, and his swim fins. He takes the GoPro again, this time clipped to his wetsuit so he doesn’t drop it again.

When he slides off the boat, the dense quiet of the water is much more evident without his scuba gear. Sound works so strangely. Some sounds feel amplified, louder and closer than they should be. And yet it’s so still, the ambient sounds of wind and waves muffled.

The morning sun is falling through the water in shafts of light, and a school of little fish are sparkling through them. The water is on the shallow side again, relatively speaking, wide swaths of white sand just visible below, with only scattered outcroppings of coral. Zhenya looks around for Magda but doesn’t see her.

He’s hanging near the surface in order to use the snorkel, and he can hear snatches of conversation from the boat, cut off whenever the water laps over his ears. He hears the explosive sound of Magda surfacing to breath and the resulting excited shouts of the undergrads before he sees her.

She solidifies out of the infinite blue in front of Zhenya like a vision. He sees the white of her pectoral fins and belly first, then the rest of her. The shafts of sunlight shimmer in dancing diamond patterns on her great back. A deep sound reverberates through the spaces in his chest.

Just like last time, his eyes water behind his mask. He thinks he’ll always react this way to seeing her this close.

Magda rolls gracefully in the water, and that’s when Zhenya sees the merman. He’s keeping pace right above the pleated expanse of Magda’s throat, and he reaches down to pat her, scritching at her skin for all the world like she’s a giant dog.

Magda rolls right side up again. She’s so close Zhenya can feel the turbulence of her movement. She swivels to face him, and in the space of a breath, the end of her rostrum is so close he could reach out and touch it. She raises her tail and brings it down on the water’s surface with a crack. Lobtailing. He wonders what she means by it; if it’s a warning or if it’s playfully meant. He tries to stay still, but he has to scull his arms to prevent the current from slamming him into Magda.

A single thrumming trill comes from down and slightly to his right. The merman is watching him, one hand resting on the whale’s side. Zhenya kicks his feet and backs away from them, trying to give them space. Magda, to his surprise, follows him. Her rostrum bumps into his middle, and he reaches out instinctively to steady himself.

He’s touching her. He’s touching a whale. He’s studied them for years, has tagged them and photographed them and listened to their songs. But he’s never laid a hand on one until now.

There’s a fucking  _ merman _ somewhere off to one side, but for a moment, Magda is all he can see. He strokes a hand across her skin. She’s gone still, is just hanging there in the water. She makes a sound and it vibrates through his very bones.

She is, in a way, the love of his life, her species the focus and passion of his career, and so it feels natural to spit out his snorkel, lean down, and reverently kiss her, right on the top of her great head.

When he raises his eyes, the merman is watching him, eyes narrowed and assessing. Zhenya, however, has to flail for the surface to take a gasping breath and to blow the water out of his snorkel before putting it back in his mouth.

He’s still close when Zhenya submerges again, expression intense. He looks like he still hasn’t quite made up his mind about Zhenya. Zhenya waves at him, and tries to smile around the snorkel in his mouth.

The merman makes a face but mirrors the gesture. Zhenya can’t help it, he grins, swallowing salt water in the process. He has to go to the surface again, coughing. When he goes back under the merman is frowning at him. Zhenya shrugs. The merman raises his hand and repeats the waving gesture. Zhenya manages to keep his snorkel in his mouth but excitement is fizzing in his stomach like bubbles.

He takes the opportunity to study the merman more closely. Now that his existence isn’t as much of a shock, Zhenya notices that he’s beautiful, in more, well,  _ human _ ways than a shark, or a dolphin, or a whale like Magda is.

He has a sharp jaw and cheekbones, offset by a plush, full mouth. His upper body is very human looking, muscled and strong. He cocks his head to one side, studying Zhenya as closely as Zhenya’s studying him. His weapon is strapped to his back today, with a fraying nylon rope crossing his chest.

Maintaining eye contact, the merman swims to where the satellite tag is attached to Magda’s side, slightly below her dorsal fin. He prods at it, then looks back at Zhenya, as if to ask, “this shit yours?”

Zhenya has no idea if nodding means anything to merpeople. It’s a fairly universal gesture, but he knows it that in some cultures it can even mean “no”. But he nods anyway. His heart also sinks a little. If the merman removes the tag, how the hell will be able to find Magda or him again?

After a moment of deliberation, he decides a gesture of trust is worth the lost data. Even if it means his study may be ruined. He takes a deep breath, and kicks his fins to dive. Luckily Magda is still. Even a gentle animal like a humpback can be dangerous to be this close to, just by reason of their massive size.

He’s able to grasp hold of the tag, and to give it the twist it needs to detach from Magda’s skin. He pats her, and gestures for the merman to come and see that she’s unharmed. He looks placated.

Zhenya’s out of air, and he shoots up for the surface again. The merman follows him, and when Zhenya’s head breaks the surface, so does his. Zhenya can hear the shocked cries from the boat, but he just treads water and watches the merman.

_ “Hi,” _ he says, inanely. “ _ I’m Zhenya.” _ The merman’s eyebrows go up at the sound of his voice. His throat flexes and he produces some of that strange speech of his. Zhenya tries to imitate one of the clicking sounds, and to his surprise, the merman smiles, showing his sharp canine teeth. He’s  _ laughing _ at Zhenya.

_ “Thanks for that,” _ Zhenya says, and he has to smile in return. He pulls off his mask, and the merman blinks, he’s still smiling but it’s smaller. Pleased, somehow. Like he likes Zhenya’s face without the heavy plastic mask distorting it.

Zhenya doesn’t want to move, but his arms and legs are tired. A swell knocks him under, and he coughs water, salt stinging his eyes and his throat. Then there’s an iron grip around his waist, and the merman has an arm around him, holding him up in the water. Zhenya clears the water from his airways with a retching cough, and stares, thunderstruck. The merman’s expression is creased in concern. He’s so strong. Zhenya is not a small man, and the merman can effortlessly hold them both steady in the water with a few powerful undulations of his tail.

The merman looks beyond them to the boat. He carefully eases his arm from around Zhenya’s waist, but takes him by the elbow and then submerges, pulling Zhenya along behind him until they reach the little water level platform at the boat’s stern. The merman eyes the other men clustering wide-eyed at the railing as he helps Zhenya heave himself up onto it. Zhenya turns to sit with his feet hanging over the side.  The merman keeps one hand on the platform, taking them all in.

Zhenya pulls off his swim fins, and the merman makes a shocked-sounding trill in his throat. Zhenya has to laugh.

“I know, feet weird.” He wiggles his toes, and laughs again at the face the merman is making.

“Geno?” Zach says weakly from behind them. When Zhenya turns, he hands down the laminated pages they’d worked on last night. His hands are shaking.

“Oh, good idea,” Zhenya says. He takes the one with a photo of Magda on it, breaching with the Canadian coastline behind her. It’s a photo Zhenya had taken of her when he first began his research. He shows the merman, whose eyes widen. He reaches out to touch the photo. Magda’s scar is clearly visible, and he points at it, then gestures down into the water. Zhenya grins and nods. The merman’s eyes narrow.

Zhenya wishes he could explain what he’s doing, that he wouldn’t hurt her. He doesn’t know what kind of cultural memory merpeople have, but there’s no way some knowledge hasn’t been passed down about what humans used to do to whales, how the water around whaling ships had roiled with blood. He hopes the way he interacted with Magda earlier conveyed his good intentions.

He points to the picture, then makes the sign for “whale.” The merman mirrors him, making a deep hum in his throat that Zhenya takes to mean the same thing. Zhenya grins. He shuffles through the pages, and finds one with a basic figure of a person on it. He makes the sign for “human” or “person.” Again, the merman mirrors him. His eyebrows are raised, and he looks pleased. The next image is of a merman. The sign for that one indicates a tail below the waist and it makes the merman smile.

For his own name, Zhenya had decided upon an “e” for Evgeni. He points at his own chest, and makes the sign, saying his own name aloud. The merman copies him. Zhenya points at the merman and and waits. The merman makes a sound Zhenya has no hope of reproducing. The first part of it is a sibilant though, and so Zhenya decides to hold up a hand with the sign for “s.” The merman repeats the sound, and copies the gesture. He then repeats the sign for “e,” and pats Zhenya’s knee. Someone swears aloud back on the boat.

S reaches for the stack of pictures, and Zhenya lets him have them. He riffles through them, until he finds the one of Magda. He points at it again, and signs “whale.” He then prods at Magda’s belly.

“Give me whiteboard,” Zhenya calls back to the rest of the guys, and Fleury hands it down with a marker. Zhenya quickly does his best to sketch the outline of a humpback whale, followed by a smaller one inside the belly of the first. S nods excitedly, and then reaches behind himself to pull out his weapon. Zhenya flinches, but S just takes lays it on the platform. He pats it, then gestures at the drawing of the pregnant whale. Zhenya goes cold. Is he saying he’s going to kill it?

His face must look awful because S frowns. Zhenya has to ask. He points at the weapon, makes a slashing motion, then points at the baby whale drawing. The merman’s eyes narrow, and he makes an explosive noise, slapping his hand on the water for emphasis. He holds out his hand for the marker, and very, very clumsily sketches out a blob alongside the whale drawing. It’s vaguely fishlike, and he makes a couple slashes near the head that look something like gills. A shark?

“Get me picture of shark,” Zhenya calls up to everyone, and there’s a scuffle as they all check for bars on their phones. Finally someone hands down Zhenya’s laptop, which has satellite internet. There’s a photo of a tiger shark on it. Carefully keeping it from getting wet, Zhenya shows S the photo.

S makes a low, angry-sounding throbbing sound in his throat, and nods. He indicates his weapon again, and bares his teeth. He reaches out, and gently pats at the drawing of the baby whale, as if petting it. Zhenya sighs in relief. He hands his laptop back up. So, S is…guarding Magda’s unborn calf? He wonders at it. If merpeople habitually do this, they haven’t been observed so far. What makes S special? Is he just terrifically bad at staying hidden? Is he some kind of whale shepherd, or is Magda weak or sick in some way that warrants special treatment?

He and S stare at each other. There’s so much behind those eyes, and he feels overwhelmed with the chasm of understanding yawning between them. The few signs they’ve traded are a thin, spindly attempt to bridge it. He signs “s” again. S smiles, and signs back “e.”

Zhenya’s heart does something traitorous and strange in his chest.


	3. Chapter 3

                             

 

 

Zhenya can’t sleep that night. He’s a mess of strong feelings, all sloshing around like water in a bilge. Awe, that he’s been gifted the extraordinary interaction he had earlier today. Fear, that he won’t ever see S or Magda again. Something hot and melting that he won’t give a name too, that keeps dwelling on S’s vivid eyes, the way his generous mouth was a little crooked when he smiled, the sheer strength and grace of him.

Yes. Zhenya is definitely not putting a name to the way those things make him feel.

He tosses and turns for hours, and is still up before dawn. He’s made a decision. He’s going back out, as near to where they’d been yesterday as possible. He probably won’t find anything in the vastness of the ocean, but at least he’ll have tried.

He thinks again about his decision to take off the satellite tag. His sole comfort is that since he removed it himself, and didn’t leave it for the merman to pry off, he’ll be able to access all the data it’s been logging. It doesn’t just record Magda’s location, but also the depth of her dives, as well as other information he can use.

Maybe he can get a paper out of that, somehow. Compare Magda’s movements to those of a whale that isn’t pregnant, or something. Laughably small sample size though, that’s going to count against him.

He’s so lost in thought that he nearly collides with Fleury and Letang, who are waiting in the parking lot of the marina.

“Why you here?” Zhenya asks peevishly. “No corals to look at today?”

“You really think we’re gonna miss this?” Letang says, eyebrow raised.  “We are in it for the long haul, man. You know you could use the help on the boat.”

Zhenya’s shoulders slump in unexpected relief. It would be nice not to be alone for this. He’s trying to let neither his pessimism nor his irrepressible hope take over completely. He’s got to be realistic.

The ocean is pearly this morning, the rising sun highlighting it in lemon yellow. Another day of flat calm. His mind goes in circles about whether it’s a good omen or a bad one, or even an omen at all. He shakes his head. He’s a scientist; he used to be a rational person. Until he discovered that beings from myths and legends exist.

It takes them over an hour to reach the coordinates of the spot where they’d interacted with S and Magda the day before. Into the water go the hydrophones, and they all pick up binoculars and begin the slow, thankless task of scanning the ocean for whale spouts.

“We could play some of the recordings we have of him talking,” Letang says, an hour in. “Maybe get him to come check things out.”

Zhenya could kick himself, he really could. “Don’t have right equipment,” he admits, shamefaced. “Can’t believe I didn’t think of this.”

“Don’t worry,” Fleury says. “If I was suddenly a fucking merman’s favorite person, I’d be distracted too.”

“Am not,” Zhenya blusters, but Letang laughs.

“You so are,” he says. “He didn’t give two shits about the rest of us. But he was smiling at you like anything.”

Zhenya feels his face flush. “Didn’t.” He tries to put the image of S’s smile out of his mind and refocuses his binoculars at the horizon.

They’ve been drifting in the same approximate location for around two hours with no luck, when there’s a thunk from the stern of the boat. They all jump and Fleury curses. There’s a humming trill from the dive platform and Zhenya looks at the others, huge grins spreading across all of their faces. They rush over, and there he is.

_ E _ , signs S.  _ Whale. Whale-whale-whale. E, whale. _ He’s got a wide smile on his face.

_ What _ ? Zhenya signs at him, even though they haven’t learned that one yet. He hopes the expression on his face will convey the question.  _ Whale? _

_ Whale!  _ S signs, then makes the sign again, smaller, hands closer together. Zhenya scrambles for the whiteboard. He scrawls out the whale outline again, baby whale in its belly. He holds it out, and S jabs at the little whale outline, erasing it. He points to the white space outside of the whale outline.

“She have baby?” Zhenya exclaims. “Magda have baby?” He signs  _ baby _ , another sign he hasn’t taught S yet. But S seems to understand what he means anyway, and cranes his neck to look around the back of the boat. He holds his spread fingers over his nose and mouth and makes a noisy exhalation. He stares at Zhenya, eyebrows raised, waiting for him to get it.

“Oh!” Zhenya exclaims, and makes the sign for “snorkel,” a backwards j shape beginning at the mouth. He turns around and Letang tosses his snorkel at him. S nods, and repeats the sign.

Zhenya scrambles to get his gear on. S is particularly amused by the ordeal that is Zhenya getting into his wetsuit. As soon as he plunges into the water, S takes him by the arm, and starts swimming. Fast. Zhenya has to yank at S’s grip at a few points so that S stops and lets Zhenya clear water from his snorkel and gulp a few breaths at the surface. Each time, S steadies him in the water, and is patient with him even though he’s practically vibrating with excitement.

Zhenya can hear the engine of the boat start up behind them, as Letang and Fleury try to keep him and S in sight.

He’s not sure how far they travel. He just sees that the bottom beneath them has  gradually become even shallower. S stops abruptly, and turns to look towards the boat, not moving again until the engine cuts out. Then he swims forward, more slowly. And ahead, Zhenya can start making out Magda’s shape. She’s at the surface, and he hears the percussive blast of her breath. Then he hears it echoed. His heart nearly stops. He knew what S was telling him but after all these months, it didn’t feel real.

S takes them close, about nineteen or twenty meters away. And there it is. Newborn-pale, it’s skin not yet darkened to the gray and white tones of its mother. Fetal folds still crease its skin from its long tenure inside the cramped quarters of Magda’s body. Other than that, its a perfect, beautiful miniature replica of its mother. It swims down from the surface after its breath, turning in the water as it works on figuring out its ridiculous pectoral fins. It bumps against Magda, and then wobbles its way out towards where S and Zhenya hang in the water. It may be an animal, but its baby innocence is clear. All its known is the care of its gentle mother.

After rolling clumsily in the water so it can get a good look at them, the calf heads back to Magda, who seems to have gone to sleep. The baby is more buoyant than she is, so it has to snuggle in under her bulk to stay submerged. Once it gets positioned underneath Magda’s belly, it appears to sleep as well.

Zhenya could watch them forever, but after a few minutes S tugs at him, motioning to the boat. Zhenya reluctantly kicks his swim fins and follows.

Once there, Zhenya hauls himself up to sit on the dive platform, feet in the water.

“So?” Letang asks, eyebrows raised.

“Beautiful,” Zhenya says. He can’t help beaming. “Mom and baby both look healthy.”  There’s a surge of water as S pulls himself up onto the platform as well, mimicking Zhenya’s position. Sitting like this, Zhenya’s taller than him. He worries a little that being out of the water will bother S, but he figures S wouldn’t sit out of it if that were the case.

“Neat, man,” Letang says, smiling widely as well. Baby whales. No one’s immune.

“Congrats,” Fleury echoes. “We put the hydrophones in the water, so we can get some recordings for your study.”

Zhenya gives him a grateful thumbs up, and sees S imitate the gesture from the corner of his eye. It gives him an idea.

He turns to S, signing his name. S responds with Zhenya’s.

_ Baby _ , S signs.

“Yes, baby,” Zhenya says, signing along with his words. He then makes a thumbs up again, as well as a wide smile. Then he gives a thumbs down and frowns. He repeats it a few times. Then he makes a “meh” face and waggles his thumb in the middle. This makes S make the whirring clicks that Zhenya figures is laughter. He repeats all the signs back to Zhenya.

Zhenya has an idea. He gets up, and clambers back into the boat to take off his fins and retrieve the satellite tag. He shows it to S.

_ Good _ , he signs.  _ Good _ .

S looks at it, then takes a long, long look into Zhenya’s eyes. He must find what he’s looking for, because he slowly nods. Zhenya feels shivery with relief.

After Magda is retagged, S sits back up on the dive platform, and with the help of the white board, Zhenya and he work on “many,” and “few,” and “fish,” and “boat.” Most of the dichotomies are pretty easy. Zhenya adds on “big” and “little.” S has an incredible memory; he only needs a couple repetitions and he’s got it. He’s also very interested in learning to manipulate the marker and whiteboard, and Zhenya has to laugh when he bossily takes the marker away to practice making marks. His webbed fingers are jointed together just like a humans, and he picks the drawing up quickly as well.

His perspective is different, though. When he draws “boat,” he draws a leaf-shape that Zhenya realizes is a boat’s hull seen from below. He’s a being that inhabits the entirety of his environment, in all dimensions. Not like a human, tied by gravity to the surface of the earth. Zhenya wonders how that affects the way he thinks.

S draws an approximate outline of a whale again, then a little one. He points at the big whale.

_ Whale? _ He then points in turn to Zhenya and himself.  _ E. S. Whale? _ He’s asking what they should call her.

“Magda,” Zhenya says, signing an “M.” S considers it, then smiles. He makes a buzzing croak, probably what he calls her in his language.

_ M _ he signs. Then, _ M, little. _

He erases the big whale on the board.  _ M _ , he signs, pointing to the little whale.  _ Boat. Human. _

He draws cross-hatching lines over the back of the whale. He pats his chest, and then his ever present bone weapon. He mimes a cutting motion.

Zhenya realizes then what happened. As a juvenile, Magda, like so many other whales, had gotten tangled in discarded fishing gear. From the depth of the scar on her dorsal ridge, she’d dragged it for god knows how long, the plastic embedding itself in her flesh. And then Sid had cut her free. And apparently taken it upon himself to watch over her for some reason. Or, maybe it’s a normal cultural practice. Zhenya still has no idea.

S gestures northwards.  _ Many _ , he signs.  _ Many, many many. _

So he must have followed Magda all the way from her summer waters off of the Maritimes.

_ E?  _ S asks.

Zhenya gestures northeast.  _ Many, many, many, many, many, many. _

_ Boat? _ S asks.

_ Yes _ , Zhenya replies, not sure how to explain airplanes yet. He holds his hands wide apart to indicate a long time. S makes a sympathetic noise. His nose wrinkles in frustration. He takes the board and struggles with it for a minute, looking disgusted at his attempt and not letting Zhenya see it before he swipes it away.

_ E, person, person? Baby? _ He signs. He still looks frustrated. _ Far? _

“I think he’s asking about your family?” Fleury hazards. “Like, other people and maybe about either your parents, or if you have children?”

Zhenya’s eyes widen. He’s at a loss.  _ No person, _ he signs.  _ No baby. _

S looks stricken.  _ No person, E? _

_ Merperson?  _ Zhenya asks.  _ S, merperson? Merperson, baby? _

_ No baby, _ S signs, He touches his chest and inhales.  _ No _ [chest-touch]  _ person. _

Zhenya wonders if the gesture means what it means to his own culture. It would be a huge coincidence. He lays his hand over his heart with a questioning frown. S reaches over and moves Zhenya’s hand up higher, It’s over his lungs, right at the base of his throat. Air.

Air. They use air to refer to people they love. Someone you love is someone you need like breathing. He keeps his hand where it is, takes a deep breath. S nods.

_ No _ , Zhenya tells him.  _ No breath-person. _

S is staring at him, eyes fathomless and intense. Zhenya feels measured, evaluated once again. 

S reaches out, and lays his fingers at the base of Zhenya’s throat. He leaves them there for a long, long moment. 

Then, in the space of a breath, he takes his hand away, slides into the water, and is gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raw fish is eaten in this chapter, mention of blood.

 

                                  

 

Finding S and Magda is easy after that. The process almost becomes routine, if teaching ASL to a fairytale could ever be considered routine. They pack up, and head out to where Magda’s tag was last pinged. S usually finds them after that.

Zhenya knows that there’s an expiration date on this. The undergrads have already had to leave, called back home by other duties and responsibilities. And he knows that eventually, when her calf is strong enough, Magda will have to swim north to her feeding grounds. She, like other humpback mothers, will barely eat the entire time she’s in tropical waters raising her baby. She needs to get back to the food-rich northern waters or she’ll starve.

Zhenya doesn’t know what Sid will do then, or what Zhenya’s going to do, for that matter. He tries not to think too much about it, or about all the research he’s not doing, the funding that’s steadily running out. One day at a time, he tells himself. No one’s ever had an opportunity like this before. He has to make the most of it.

S’s vocabulary continues to expand. Zhenya scrambles to keep up, googling language learning theory late into the night, feverishly combing YouTube for ASL instruction videos.

They’re currently working on colors. Zhenya doesn’t even know how S sees color, but he does learn a lot when he tries to teach S the sign for “blue.”

 _Word_? S asks, pointing at the blue stripe painted around the boat.

 _Blue_ , Zhenya tells him.

S points at the water around them.

 _Blue_ , Zhenya repeats. S makes a “wow, okay, no” kind of face. He points at the sky.

 _Blue_ , Zhenya says again. S rolls his eyes. He starts pointing at blue things and making a different sound for each. So Geno has to teach him a few modifiers before he’s content: “gray,” and “green,” and “light” and “dark.” It makes sense, Zhenya figures. These are the colors that make up the greater part of S’s world.

S remains dissatisfied with the limited human expression of color, but his fascination with humans themselves doesn’t abate. He shows a marked preference for interacting with Geno, but seems to like Letang and Fleury well enough, especially Fleury. Fleury is the one who decides that they can’t keep calling him “S.” He runs a whole gamut of names starting with “s” past him, and S makes faces at them all, until Fleury tries out “Sid.” That one is met with a shrug and a thumbs up, so “Sid” he becomes.

Sid brings them a fish one day, a beautiful yellowfin tuna, easily a meter long. He heaves it onto the dive platform with pride, then pats its glistening, iridescent side.

 _E_ , he says. _You like._

Zhenya blinks. Yesterday had included a long conversation on food likes and dislikes, Zhenya talking to Sid while Letang scribbled down data on merpeople’s dietary habits and Fleury googled frantically to try and identify the species Sid was talking about.

Zhenya, for reasons he’s not. Thinking. About. feels his face flush a little. “Yes,” he says and signs at the same time. “I like fish.”

 _This one. Good?_ Sid asks.

“Very good. Best.”

“Awww, Geno got a present,” Fleury laughs. “What about me, Sid?” _Fish for Flower?_ He asks, using the sign he’s chosen for himself.

 _You eat fins, head,_ Sid tells him, smirking. He looks back to Zhenya, smirk softening. He pats the fish again and looks encouragingly at him.

Oh no, Zhenya realizes. He’s waiting for Zhenya to try it. Right here. On the boat. Raw. Zhenya’s a big sushi fan but there’s a difference between a pretty, delicate slice of sashimi and a whole massive fucking fish, lying bleeding at your feet while a hopeful looking merman blinks up at you, waiting for you to tuck in, apparently.

“Give me my dive knife,” he sighs at Fleury, and with some difficulty, manages to hack off a piece of the yellowfin. Sid watches intently as Zhenya takes a bite.

It’s fresher than the best sushi he’s ever eaten, and it’s actually, gory acquisition aside, kind of incredible. “Wow,” he says. “It’s delicious.” He makes the sign for Sid.

 _Delicious is very good, for food,_ he tells him.

 _I’m happy,_ Sid tells him. _Eat more?_

And that’s how Zhenya ends up sitting with his feet in the ocean, hacking pieces of raw tuna off its carcass and sharing them with a merman. And eventually Letang and Fleury, once he convinces Sid to share. He grins at nothing in particular, and wonders how this is his life.

The tuna opens the floodgates, apparently. Sid starts bringing him things. One day it’s a smooth, fist-sized cowrie shell, another it’s a enormous living conch. Zhenya thanks him for that one, puts it in a cooler full of seawater, and sets the cumbersome mollusk free once they’re back to the shallows. The handful of pretty calico scallop shells he receives a few days later, he keeps.

Sid kept some for himself as well, and spends an afternoon deftly knotting them into a sort of necklace using strands from one of their ropes that he cajoles Zhenya into giving him.

 _No shells these north,_ S tells them, tying the necklace around his neck and looking pleased with himself. His syntax gets a little creative sometimes.

“Very pretty,” Zhenya signs and tells him. At Sid’s confused look he explains. “Pretty is ‘good,’ for your eyes.”

“Beautiful is _very_ pretty,” Letang helpfully supplies. Sid nods, taking it all in.

When Letang and Fleury are occupied with something else, Sid looks at the movement of Zhenya’s hands as he signs and tells him: _your words are beautiful._

Zhenya’s heart thuds painfully. “Word?” he says out loud, hands stilling in surprise.

 _No_ , Sid says, and reaches out to tap a finger on the back of Zhenya’s hand. _These_.

“Oh,” Zhenya says out loud, and suddenly he can’t look at Sid, his chest tight and aching. Sid trills softly in concern, until Zhenya looks up at him.

 _E? You good?_ He asks. Zhenya can only swallow, and nod.

Sid’s sitting on the dive platform as he often does, and Zhenya’s suddenly aware of how close they are.

 _Pretty_? Sid asks, and Zhenya nearly dies before he sees Sid follow the question with a touch to his new necklace.

 _Yes_ , he replies.

 _Beautiful_ , Sid says, reaching out to touch the gold chain Zhenya always wears, looking ever so slightly wistful.

Recklessly, Geno unclasps his chain, letting the gold links slither into his palm. Feeling foolish and helpless, he holds it out to Sid.

Sid’s eyes go wide, and he reaches out to take the chain carefully, gaze a little disbelieving. He lets the chain slide through his fingers, and holds it up to watch the sun wink off of it.

“Here,” Zhenya says, his voice rough. He take it, and lays it around Sid’s neck, doing up the clasp in the back. He runs a finger down it, straightening out the kinks. Sid is making a soft hum in his throat, and his eyes are big and dark. He looks down at the chain shining against his skin, and touches it. Zhenya wants to give him a dozen necklaces, drape him in gold, just to see that soft look of wonder in his eyes again.

Sid reaches up and unties the shell necklace from around his neck, and before Zhenya can move, he’s leaning in close to tie it around Zhenya’s. Zhenya can feel the warmth of his skin, can see the kaleidoscope of color in his eyes. A bead of water slides from his drying hair down his cheek, to the corner of his full, perfect lips.  

What the hell is Zhenya doing. What the hell is he allowing himself to feel? He should, if he had any integrity or sense, stop this. Shut down…whatever this is. God, Sid’s not even the same species as he is.

Instead he looks at the soft, pleased smile on Sid’s face, and feels powerless to do anything that would chase it away.

Fleury takes a long look at the shells around Zhenya’s neck during their boat ride back to the marina.

“You should be careful, man. It’s like…I don’t know. All these presents he brings you. You don’t know what they mean in his culture. And now you gave him something back. For all you know, that’s like, getting engaged or something.” Zhenya’s cheeks go flame-hot.

“Don’t be stupid,” He tells Fleury, but inside he think that he’s the stupid one here, probably.

 

* * *

 

He dreams of Sid that night. Dreams about running into him on the street, dreams about him walking up to Zhenya with that smile of his. On two legs and two feet. He dreams that he speaks to him in Russian.

 _“You like me, don’t you?_ ” Dream-Sid says, with an accent so perfect he sounds like he was born a street away from Zhenya. _“You_ like _me.”_

Dream-Zhenya opens his mouth and tries to say something back, to protest,  but all that comes out is a series of trills and clicks, like the sounds real Sid makes.

“ _Oh_ ,” Dream Sid says, face slowly going terrible and cold.

_“I don’t understand you. I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”_


	5. Chapter 5

                                  

 

 

“Okay so,” Fleury says, around a mouthful of grilled tuna steak. “The more we know, the more we don’t?”

It’s been yellowfin tuna steaks all week, but it’s stretching their stipends out so no one’s complaining.

“Like,” Flower continues. “We know he breathes air. When he’s above water he inhales and exhales. I’ve seen him surface to breathe and then go back down. His people’s entire concept of love is built around the metaphor of breathing, for fuck’s sake. So. _Dolphins_ can only hold their breath for, like, what?”

“Eight to ten minutes,” Zhenya supplies.

Flower waves a fork at him in acknowledgment. “Right. And I know I’ve been him stay submerged for longer. So. What the fuck is up with his respiratory and circulatory systems, man?”

Zhenya shrugs. As a marine mammal specialist he’s been asking himself the same questions. All his scientific inquiry has been a little buried, though, under the feverish desire to communicate with Sid. He knows Sid isn’t just science to Letang and Fleury, not anymore, but while they care about him, they aren’t as…consumed. Zhenya doesn’t want to use the word obsessed. He just can’t stop thinking about how much he wants to tell Sid and how much he wants to ask him, held up against the woefully inadequate shared language they’ve managed to accrue.

“I want to know more about their social structure too,” Fleury is continuing.

“We maybe learn family words tomorrow,” Zhenya says thoughtfully. “Can show pictures of your family, too.”

Predictably, Fleury and Letang both light up. They each have lovely wives and beautiful children, and are both equally incapable of shutting up about either. It makes Zhenya feel fond and amused, if a bit… lonely.

“You should dive with him again,” Letang adds. “Do some underwater observation, get some footage we can analyze later.”

Zhenya nods, and smiles into his water glass at the idea of swimming with Sid again. And if Magda is close by, maybe her and her rapidly growing calf as well.

At the thought of Magda’s calf, Zhenya feels a by-now familiar ache in his chest. How much time do they really have? He takes a sip of water and half wishes it were something stronger.

 

* * *

 

After Zhenya uses the flash cards he made to teach Sid the words for family relationships, he moves aside and lets Fleury and Letang show their photos. Sid is delighted with them.

 _This is my wife,_ Letang signs proudly. _My breath-person._

 _Very beautiful,_ Sid says. _She’s beautiful, your face is very bad_. He makes a confused, sad face and shakes his head.

“Hey!” Letang protests, until he notices the way Sid’s trying to hide his smirk. Zhenya laughs. Letang is a good guy but he’s definitely proud of his looks, and Sid has obviously noticed that.

 _Ugly is bad, for your eyes_ he tells Sid. _K is very ugly._

Sid laughs his strange, clicking laugh while Letang sputters.

Sid doesn’t tease him about his child though. He gently touches the images of Alex and smiles.

His eyes go even softer when Letang taps his wife’s belly in the photo.

 _Baby,_ he tells Sid. _She’s pregnant._

 _Where are they?_ Sid asks. _I see?_

 _Far_ , Letang replies, and Zhenya has to look down for a moment at the homesick yearning in Letang's eyes.

 _Why?_ Sid asks, and even the moment of his hands is gentler, his eyes big with concern.

Letang looks around helplessly at the rest of them. “How do I explain science, you guys?” he asks.

 _We look at things in the ocean,_ Zhenya tries. _We look at things to know more. We look at bad things and fix them._ Or, try too.

 _What is ‘fix?’_ Sid asks

 _Make something bad, not bad_ Zhenya answers.

Sid nods slowly, and then turns to Letang and pats him gently in the shoulder.

“Well. Let’s get your gear sorted out,” Letang says to Zhenya, smile a little wobbly.

 

* * *

  

It’s amazing, being underwater with Sid again. This time he’s not as put off by Zhenya’s scuba gear. Sid swims wide, excited loops around Zhenya, finally taking him by the arm when Zhenya is slower than Sid would like.

It takes Zhenya a while to figure out that when Sid makes a jabbing motion at himself that it’s a beckoning gesture. A jabbing motion at oneself means “come here [to me],” and the same motion applies to say, an interesting coral formation is “go there,” not just “look.” Slightly different than a sweep of the arm or a crooking of the fingers, like a lot of humans do.

They end up in an open sandy area patrolled by a school of lemon sharks. Zhenya kneels on the sand and watches them circle. It’s a pretty docile species, so he just enjoys watching them glide through the water. He’s always been fond of them; the mothers migrate to the same lagoons they were born in to have their pups. Reminds him of his beloved cetaceans.

Sid goes off on his own for a moment, then returns with a fish in hand. He lets a massive pregnant female bite it in two, then heaves the rest of it toward a school of juveniles, letting them scrabble over the scraps. He settles on the sand next to Zhenya, who is helplessly smiling at him around his regulator.

Sid smiles back. He points at the enormous female shark.

 _Mother_ he says.

 _Beautiful_ Zhenya answers. _Big._

Sid becomes a little more alert when a tiger shark decides to join the party. He doesn’t move aggressively or reach for his weapon, just orients his body to keep it in sight.

Zhenya marvels at it as it passes them, massive barred side gliding two feet in front of his face, and tries not to feel nervous. He knows that they aren’t interested in humans unless provoked, but. Still. It’s a tiger shark. It’s enormous.

Sid, even though he once expressed anger towards them in regards to Magda’s calf, calmly keeps pace with it, swimming right above it, even trailing a hand down to brush against its back.

Great tail moving like a scythe, the creature decides there’s nothing of interest and moves off. Sid watches it go, and as he does, taps two fingers against his throat.

Zhenya wonders if it’s a superstitious or religious gesture. It reminded him somehow of military salutes, or of someone crossing themselves in church.

One apex predator acknowledging another, he supposes.

 _What is_ [gesture] _?_ he asks.

Sid tilts his head, considering. _Many fish_ he signs, and has to think again. _Many baby. Good—_ he moves his hand around, gesturing at everything around them. Life, maybe, Zhenya thinks. He makes the gesture himself, and Sid smiles, fond.

They’re about halfway back to the boat, Zhenya’s air supply running low, when a shadow falls over them and Sid whips around, pushing Zhenya behind him and drawing his weapon.

Zhenya stares, awestruck.

It’s…a mermaid, beautiful face like a storm, teeth bared. She doesn’t look anything like Sid. She has delicate spines and fins, red and white like a lionfish’s. Her eyes and skin are dark, and she has long, long black hair that streams behind her like a banner.

When she speaks, she doesn’t open her mouth, just like Sid. But even Zhenya can tell, after listening to Sid for so long, that the sound of her words isn’t quite the same. She gestures angrily to Sid, indicating himself and then pointing at Zhenya. Sid answers her, but she interrupts whatever he says with a storm of furious-sounding speech. She’s beautiful, and she’s terrible, and Zhenya, for the thousandth time in the last few weeks, wonders if he’s dreaming.

Exchange over, she makes a final, dismissive gesture, and flares all of her fins. Sid takes Zhenya by the arm and pulls him, as fast as they can swim together, back towards the waiting boat.

 

* * *

 

Once there, Zhenya throws off his gear as fast as he can.

 _The mermaid,_ he asks Sid. _Same words?_

Sid looks…troubled, and there’s something like pain in his eyes as he slowly raises his hands to speak.

 _Close, many different words. She’s here, I’m north, far._ He pauses again. He’s not looking at Zhenya now and something is tightening Zhenya’s throat and filling his stomach with dread.

 _She say…say is bad. You see me. It’s bad._ Sid’s head is bowed.

Zhenya can’t stand it, he just can’t. He kneels on the dive platform.

“Sid,” he says aloud, and finally, Sid looks up at him. His expression makes Zhenya feel sick.

 _No,_ Zhenya tells him. _It’s not bad. I—_

How does he explain, “promise.”

_Not bad. I won’t say, other people. It’s not—_

His eyes are wet. The idea of Sid slipping away into the blue and Zhenya never seeing him again is just. It’s—

Sid makes a soft noise.

 _E_ he signs, and accompanies it with a sound that has the cadence of Zhenya’s name.

He looks frustrated, and Zhenya recognizes that frustration. It’s having so many important things to say, but no words to say them with.

Sid reaches up, tugs at him to lean closer, moving one hand to the back of Zhenya’s neck. Sid closes his eyes, takes a shuddering breath, opens them, and with a kind of fierceness lays four fingers at the base of Zhenya’s throat. His eyes bore into Zhenya’s, willing him to understand.

Zhenya’s breath catches. Everything around them seems to fall away, as the universe shifts, tilts, and clicks into place, unfamiliar and new.

He reaches out, and lays his own shaking fingers at the base of Sid’s throat, right above the gold chain he gave to him. He can feel the flutter of Sid’s pulse, feel the rise and fall of his chest.

Sid leans his forehead against Zhenya’s, making quiet, murmuring noises. The few gentle clicks among them make Zhenya’s fingers jump with the movement of his throat.

“Okay,” Zhenya says, just as softly. “Okay.”

Sid lifts his hands and leans back,  and Zhenya feels the absence of his touch like an ache.

 _One sun_ Sid tells him. _One sun. You come. Boat._

 _I haven’t taught him how to say “tomorrow”_ is all Zhenya can think as Sid gives him one last look, and slips under the surface.

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

                                 

 

Zhenya  spends another sleepless night, turning that exchange over and over in his mind.

There’s no way around it. Sid pretty much told him that he… cares for Zhenya? _Loves_ him? And Zhenya had been helpless to do anything but truthfully respond in kind.

Alone in the dark, Zhenya lays his hand on the base of his throat, and feels his own furiously beating pulse, his shallow breathing.

_Breath-person,_ he thinks. _Someone you need like air._

He feels like his insides are being rent in half—and it’s both the worst and most wonderful thing he’s ever felt.

 

* * *

 

The next day, he goes out early, and alone. A wad of cash secures him a local’s boat, a smaller one that he can easily operate on his own.

It’s an overcast day, the pale grey of sky and sea blending into each other. Sid doesn’t come find him right away, probably because of the unfamiliar boat. But Zhenya yanks on his mask and snorkel and plunges into the water. Everything feels muted without the bright shimmer of sunlight. He can just hear whalesong, far, far off.

_Sid,_ he thinks. _Where are you?_ Long minutes pass, and he is alone with the sound of his breathing, loud and clumsy through the snorkel.

A string of familiar clicks, and Zhenya whirls around. There Sid is, looking a little puzzled, but happy. He smiles at Zhenya, reaches out to touch his face, then his neck. God.

Zhenya wants the snorkel off, he wants his hands free. He gets himself back on the boat, and then leans over the gunwale as Sid surfaces. His gaze flicks across Zhenya’s face and he frowns.

He reaches out to touch the skin beneath Zhenya’s eye.

_Sleep bad?_ Sid asks.

_Yes_ Zhenya replies.

_Sad?_ Sid signs.

_Worried_ Zhenya answers. Sid studies him for a long moment.

_Why?_

_Magda will go north_ , Zhenya says. _When the baby is big. You? Will you go north?_

Sid’s eyes widen in comprehension and his expression goes gentle. He touches Zhenya’s face again.

_You? You here? You north? Or you family, far?_ he asks Zhenya.

Zhenya has to compile his research. He needs to write his paper. And when his sabbatical is over, he needs to go back to his university. But how can he go back? It’s not even in the realm of possible, now, leaving.

_E_ Sid prompts, and suddenly the abbreviation bothers Zhenya.

_Different name for family,_ he signs. _Or—_ he flushes _— breath-people._

He raises his hands, and uses Russian sign to make the “ _Ж_ ” that begins the diminutive of his name. “Zhenya,” he says.

Sid makes a sound that is almost recognizable as his name, then repeats the sign. He looks pleased, a flush on his high cheekbones. Zhenya wants to kiss him there.

_Do_ merpeople kiss? How do they even have _sex_ ? What the fucking _hell_ is he doing—

_Zhenya,_ Sid signs, sharply. _Stop. Stop worry-face._

Then he answers Geno’s questions about kissing by leaning up and pressing his lips to the corner of Zhenya’s mouth.

When he leans back he eyes Zhenya a little worriedly.

_Humans, good?_ he asks. _Good thing, for a person you—_ “ Zhenya hasn’t told him the sign for “love”, so he lays his fingers at the base of his own throat.

_It’s good_ Zhenya reassures him, shell-shocked. _Very good._

**_Veeerry good_ **Sid signs, exaggerating the motion and grinning widely.

Zhenya laughs, breathless. And here he’d been so worried about cultural taboos and social mores and trying to be respectful, only to find that Sid was trying just as hard to be careful of him. It’s humbling.

_Come, shallow water, small boat goes_ Sid says. _Swim._

 

* * *

  

Sid leads Zhenya to a little atoll, fringed with reefs and shallows. It’s hardly more than a sandbar with delusions of grandeur, but the water around it couldn’t be a better place to swim.

Zhenya anchors the boat and slides off the side. The water comes up to his collarbones, and Sid looks very pleased with himself at how he can be at Zhenya’s eye level like this. He brushes the back of his hand against Zhenya’s cheek, and just, looks at him. With a quiet smile lifting the corners of his mouth, and a kind of warm determination in his eyes. Like a promise.

Nobody’s ever looked at Zhenya like that before.

Sid leans in and kisses him again, and Zhenya responds this time, tilting his head to deepen it and letting his hands settle on the smooth muscle of Sid’s sides. Sid hums, deep and resonant in his chest. He wraps his arms around Zhenya’s neck and leans in. Zhenya just plants his feet in the sand and takes Sid’s weight.

In keeping himself steady in the water, Sid ends up undulating his tail and body up against Zhenya’s body. Zhenya shudders, and Sid smirks at him.

“You’re trouble,” Zhenya tells him, shaking his head. Sid seems to gather what he means from his tone, and his smirk just widens. He winds a hand through Zhenya’s hair and _whir-click-hums_ at him.

“So much trouble” Zhenya breathes as Sid gently sets those sharp teeth of his against Zhenya’s neck.

And then Sid wraps himself even further around him, and he thrusts his tail up between Zhenya’s legs, and Zhenya loses his words entirely.

 

* * *

  

The boat sits so low in the water that Sid can easily haul himself up over the side to sit in it. He’s maneuvered Zhenya to his liking; that is, he’s tugged him over so that Zhenya can sprawl with his head in Sid’s lap, as Sid combs his fingers soothingly through Zhenya’s hair. He must sense that although Zhenya is loose-limbed and stupid with the pleasure of what they’ve just done, that part of him is still afraid, still worried about what all of this means and what the future holds.

Sid is doing what Zhenya can only assume is singing, a low, resonant droning sound that throbs and dips, reminding Zhenya of storm swells, or circling seabirds.

When Zhenya opens his eyes, Sid smiles down at him, the singing stuttering to a halt as Sid makes the sound that Zhenya now knows is Zhenya’s name.

Sid continues on to say a lot of things, but his hands remain where they are, running through Zhenya’s hair and soothing up and down his arm. He could be saying anything: promises or reassurances, or maybe just that it’s a beautiful day and that Zhenya makes him happy.

Fuck, Zhenya hopes he makes Sid happy. Because god help him, Sid makes him feel like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff, and that if he stepped off, there’s a chance he might fly instead of fall.

 

* * *

 

When he brings the boat back to the marina, the sun hangs low and red in the sky.

Fleury and Letang are standing at the end of the dock waiting, wearing matching tight expressions.

_Shit_.

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

                              

 

Zhenya brings the boat in and throws a line up onto the dock so he can tie the boat to the cleats. He doesn’t look at Fleury and Letang, just busies himself with his gear. They can’t know what happened out there, but he feels himself flush all the same.

Or, he thought they couldn’t have known what had happened.

“ _Crisse de câlice,_ is that a gigantic fucking _hickey_?” Letang squawks. Zhenya’s hand flies to his neck, where the skin feels hot and tender after Sid’s attentions. Fuck.

“I know that isn’t from last night, because you were with us, researching,” Letang continues.

“Kris,” Fleury says warningly. Zhenya doesn’t like the way he’s looking at Zhenya, doesn’t like the fact that his expression looks a little like pity.

“Oh my god,” Letang says. “No. Did you. No. You _didn’t_.”

Zhenya is tired of this. He looks up at Kris, and his face must say it all.

“G. Oh. My. God. DO NOT FUCK THE SCIENCE!”

Rage sweeps through Zhenya like a backdraft in a fire. He swings himself up onto the dock and towers over Letang, balling his trembling fists.

_“You miserable piece of shit,_ ” he hisses, before his English comes back. “If that all he is to you, don’t fucking show your face here again. Sid isn’t ‘science’— “

“He’s a person, we know. Kris misspoke,” Fleury says, quietly, reaching out and laying a hand on Zhenya’s arm. Zhenya very nearly throws it off. “You know we don’t just consider him some sort of research subject. You _know_ we care. ”

The anger crumbles into ash, leaving only the bitter taste of anxiety and fear. Zhenya’s so worried about the future that he can’t think straight. Letang and Fleury, he knows, have been here the whole time, slaving over flashcards and research, spending hours out on the boat, even though they have studies and responsibilities of their own. He sees many of his own worries reflected in their eyes. He knows how important all of this is to them.

His shoulders slump, and to his surprise, Letang pulls him forward for a murmured “Sorry, man,”  and a one-armed bro hug, then gives him a little push towards Fleury for another.

“I’d been wondering for a while,” Fleury says. “The way he looked at you. The way you looked at him. The necklaces.”

Zhenya touches the shells hanging around his neck, where his chain used to be. His throat is suddenly tight, tears rising hot in his eyes.

“I don’t know what to do,” he rasps. “He’s— we— “

Fleury smiles sadly and taps his fingers to the base of his own throat. “You’re special to each other. It’s not wrong, to love someone.”

The gentle sympathy is too much. Zhenya presses his forearm to his eyes, in a vain effort to stem the tears.

“Hey, man,” Letang say placatingly. “Let’s go get a bottle of decent rum and get you drunk, okay?”

Zhenya takes the kindness for what it is, and agrees.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Sid finds them way before they reach Magda. He rides their bow wave, making a few low arcing leaps that make Zhenya’s breath catch. When they reach the whales and kill the engine, Sid doesn’t wait for Zhenya to pull on a wetsuit or to get his snorkel gear on. He pulls himself up onto the dive platform, then reaches up the short ladder from it to the deck to haul himself up onto the boat’s railing, something he hasn’t done before.

“Well hi,” Fleury says, blinking in surprise.

_Hi_ Sid tells him and Letang, almost perfunctory. He looks at Zhenya then, and just. Smiles. Bright and warm as a sunrise.

“Okay, I see it now. We’re nothing special, are we,” Letang playfully gripes as Zhenya, blushing, goes to Sid to get tugged down so Sid can kiss his cheek and rest his forehead against Zhenya’s.

_Hi,_ Sid signs, and the movement of his hands is gentle, soft, like he’d maybe he using that tone of voice were he speaking. _Sleep okay? Worry?_

_Aways_ , Zhenya signs, then explains. _Always is not stopping._

Sid lays his hand on the back of Zhenya’s neck, making sure he’s looking at him before freeing his hands to sign: _Always good, to see you._

_Yes_ Zhenya signs. _Seeing you is my favorite. Favorite is liking something more than other things._

_Everything? Things more good than me?_  Sid asks, with a teasing smile. _Give me word._

Zhenya could tease back, tell him “food,” or “sleep,” or “Magda,”, but he swallows against the sudden lump in his throat and can only answer truthfully.

_Nothing_ he tells Sid, which makes the sly smile drop from Sid’s face in place of a dark, heated look as he leans in to kiss Zhenya deeply, with no care for their audience.

“Wow. Look at us third and fourth wheels over here,” Zhenya hears Letang joke, and Sid pulls back.

_Open open open open open,_ he signs, rolling his eyes.

“Huh?” Letang asks, as Fleury and Zhenya laugh. “Is that his way of saying ‘blah-blah-blah-blah-blah? _Hey_.”

Sid laughs at them, and as Zhenya sits on the rail next to him, curls his tail around Zhenya’s ankle.

“Aw,“ Letang says. “That’s fucking cute, I have to admit. It’s like they’re holding hands.”

Zhenya _tsks_ and waves him away. Sid brightens at the noise, then perfectly replicates it.

Fleury chuckles. “Alright, he can now sound exasperated in human well enough. Where did we put that new pack of flashcards?”

They get to work, Sid leaning into Zhenya’s side.

 

* * *

 

Once again, Sid makes them marvel at how incredible his memory is. A couple times, he corrects Fleury or Letang when they get a sign wrong, and he seems to be remembering the associated spoken words even if he can’t reproduce them himself.

“I had an idea,” Fleury says. “For when Magda migrates back north. If we can manage to explain how the satellite tags work, can we maybe retrofit one for him to carry on him somehow?”

Letang perks up. “I’m pretty sure I can rig something up.”

Zhenya sits up straighter. “Oh! Hand me my laptop.” He opens it, and pulls up the window showing the map with Magda’s tracking data.

_Ocean_ he tells Sid, pointing to the appropriate parts of the map. _Land_. He hopes that Sid can conceptualize the bird’s eye view. He’s not sure how merpeople navigate their world.

Sid hums, studying the map. It shows the topography of the sea floor as well. Sid points to a spot where the bottom drops abruptly.

_Good fish, many_ he says, and Zhenya smiles helplessly. Of course Sid understands.

_Magda is here_ he tells Sid. Sid leans closer, observes the pattern of dots showing the tag pings. Zhenya gets out the whiteboard and sketches out Magda and her tag. He points at the tag, then at the screen. Sid tilts his head to one side, blinks, then lights up.

_Give me_ he signs excitedly. _For far, for north. You come._

Zhenya has to lean forward and kiss him then.

_Always_ , he tells Sid. And since he hasn’t taught Sid how to say “promise” yet, he settles for their own version of it, and touches Sid’s throat.


	8. Chapter 8

                                

 

“Stop,” Zhenya says.

Fleury looks up from where he was trying to teach Sid how to flip someone off and grins like the goblin he is. “I’m just making sure his education is well-rounded!”

_What is word_ Sid asks, and meditatively considers his own raised middle fingers.

_It’s a very bad word_ Zhenya explains. _For go away, or stop, or someone is a bad person._

“Ayyy, fuck you!” Letang helpfully demonstrates, flipping them all off with both hands.

“Fuck!” Sid says, causing them all to stare at him. It hadn’t sounded right, very guttural and the fricative of the “f” was mostly missing, but it was clear enough. Like all of Sid’s speech, he’d said it without opening his mouth.

“Oh god,” Zhenya says, as Fleury and Letang practically piss themselves laughing. Sid grins, and leans over to kiss Zhenya’s cheek.

_Word for_ you he says, and makes an abrupt gesture: a flick of the wrist with a hooked index finger.

_What’s the word?_ Zhenya asks, mimicking the movement. Sid watches him do it with barely restrained glee.

_It’s bad_ Sid says. _Don’t say to other merpeople._

Zhenya rolls his eyes at him. “Okay, new one for you too, if you like so much. ‘ _Blyat’_.”

_Sign?_ Sid asks.

_I don’t know_ Zhenya admits. _Sorry. I’ll find it for you later._

Sid makes a muffled croaking noise, frowning as he tries to say the curse word. It doesn’t come out as clearly as “fuck” did, and he looks frustrated. Zhenya leans forward to rest his forehead on Sid’s shoulder.

“It’s okay, Sid,” he says, and Sid hums at him.

“This is amazing,” Letang says, coming over to sit next to them. “He can’t formulate English except for the word ‘fuck’. This is the best day of my life. I’m going to teach him how to swear in Québécois.”

“Yes, yes,” Zhenya says to him, and does the wrist-flick thing Sid taught him. Sid snorts and laughs into Zhenya’s hair.

“I don’t even want to know,” Letang says cheerfully, tilting his face up to the blazing tropical sun.

 

* * *

  

Zhenya takes the small boat out again, late in the day this time. He and Sid spend time out on the atoll, the boat safely anchored in the shallows.

They talk about their families, a little. Sid has a sister, Zhenya learns. It’s strange. Even having run into that one local mermaid, learning about his sister solidifies the idea that Sid isn’t a fairytale. He’s a flesh and blood member of a community of others like himself. Of a family.

Sid is curious about Zhenya’s family as well. Zhenya explains that he doesn’t talk with his brother all that much, and that he misses his parents. He tries to explain that he doesn’t speak the same language as most of the people where he lives, and that it’s lonely.

He has to laugh a little at the situation. Two French-Canadians and a Russian teach a merman English. It’s the set-up of a joke.

Sid is curious about the Russian.

_I want to hear your words,_ he tells Zhenya.

So Zhenya talks to him, tells him how beautiful he is, how incredible it is that Zhenya can feel so deeply about him in so short a time. How it feels like he’s everything to Zhenya, now.

Sid watches his face all through it, eyes intent and serious. When Zhenya stops speaking, Sid tugs him sharply off of the boat and into the water, the better to wrap himself around Zhenya and press fierce kisses all over his face and neck, ending with a deep, lengthy kiss to Zhenya’s lips.

Sid traces Zhenya’s mouth with a finger when they finally break apart.

_Beautiful_ , he says. _And beautiful words._

 

* * *

 

There are so many stars that night. They dust the sky, and shimmer on the flat calm of the water. There’s a full moon too, and it silvers everything around them. Zhenya lies back on the bottom of the boat, with a couple life jackets pushed under his head as a pillow.

He brought a towel with him, which he soaks with seawater and gives to Sid to spread over himself.

Sid has to leave and go back into the water at some point during the night when the towel dries, but at least Zhenya gets to fall asleep with him in his arms.

 

* * *

  

A few days later, the LIMPET satellite tag they’d ordered arrives, and they start working on how to retrofit it to be carried by Sid. It’s not that tiny per se, about two inches square and an inch thick, so making a way for Sid to carry it on his person for hundreds of miles presents a problem. It’s _usually_ deployed by air rifle or crossbow shot, with two metal darts that anchor in the connective tissue of a whale’s dorsal fin. Obviously not happening. They shear the metal off. Letang thinks they should either drill a hole into the housing to thread a loop of nylon rope through, or just get Sid one of those neoprene armbands joggers strap cellphones into.

In the end that’s what they do, and when the armband arrives they test it out. It stays in place no matter how fast Sid swims or how exuberantly he twists and leaps. Zhenya feels some of his ever-present worry dissipate.

You’re not going to lose him, he tells himself. You’re not.

 

* * *

  

Magda’s baby is doing well. It’s a male, Sid tells them, even though sexing humpbacks is usually impossible that young.

_M thinks it’s boy, that he’ll sing_ Sid tells them when Zhenya asks, which sends him into a conniption about the idea that Sid can _talk to Magda,_ and Sid has to calm him down by explaining that it’s some kind of behavioral observation, not actual verbal communication. Zhenya isn’t certain, what Sid tells him is a little garbled and lost in translation. He’s still having a scientist’s emotional breakdown about how much they still don’t fucking _know_ about whales, though.

Zhenya tries some names out with Sid. Sid’s partial to Pavel, so it becomes the little calf’s name, Pasha for short. He’s lost his pale newborn coloration, and looks even more like a mini version of his mother. He’s swimming strong and sure now, no wobbling to be seen, and growing fat and healthy on his mother’s milk.

They give Sid the tag to keep with him, just in case. He needs to make the journey north with Magda so he can save energy and swim in her slipstream, and if she decides to leave in the middle of the night, he’ll have to leave too.

Zhenya knows all of this, and still it hits him like a blow when he wakes up and checks the previous night’s data to see that Magda and Sid’s tags pinged miles north of where they usually are. It’s happening. Magda is migrating.

The instinct is to jump in the damn boat, take it out as fast as it will go and try to catch them. The truth is that their boat’s top speed and Magda’s are about the same, and they’re not going to be able to catch up. And even if they get a faster boat, what difference would it make? Magda isn’t stopping. Sid needs to stay with her.

Zhenya curls up in bed with his laptop for the rest of the day, and waits for the data to come in from the satellite uplink. He watches the dots on the screen that are Sid and Magda travel further and further north, and tries unsuccessfully to forget that he didn’t get to say goodbye, and to feel less like his heart’s been ripped out and is traveling with them.


	9. Chapter 9

                                         

 

 

 

 

Zhenya has missed people before. He’s been away from someone he’d been in a relationship with before. Nothing, though, has left a void quite like Sid’s absence has.

The whales’ migration can take up to two months, or more. Magda will stop to feed or socialize, and she’ll slow down if her baby needs to rest. The soonest that humpbacks start showing up in Labrador and Newfoundland is around the month of April. It’s February now.

Zhenya’s saving grace is the sheer amount of work he has to do. He’s got his neglected research to compile and to analyze, and he has to either start planning out his classes for the next term, or start preparing to resign.

He has a little money put away, but not the amount he’d have if he’d had any idea that he was going to be uprooting his entire life.

“What are you going to do?” Flower asks him gently, over the tub of coral samples Zhenya is helping him with. Zhenya just looks at him, unable to answer.

“We’ll ask around,” Letang promises. “See if there are any openings in the Maritimes.”

“What about MUN?” Fleury says, lighting up. “Their marine biology program is great.”

Zhenya knows about Memorial University of Newfoundland. He corresponded with a few of the researchers there before arriving in the Maritimes to begin his own work.

“Don’t know,” he says, shame rising in his throat. “Don’t know if my English good enough for teaching at university level.”

_“Mon chum_ ,” Letang says, clapping a hand on his shoulder and giving him a little shake. “You just spent most of a winter teaching a merman, who you had zero words in common with at the onset, how to communicate in American Sign Language, a language that you yourself didn’t even speak before now . I think you can handle teaching some snot-nosed freshmen the difference between their echinoderms and their cnidarians.”

“Okay no,” Geno says, wrinkling his nose. “Those so different—“

Flower cackles. “See? You could do it. People love an accent. It’s been scientifically proven that you listen better to a speaker with a foreign accent. I saw it in an article somewhere.”

“Where? Buzzfeed?” Letang teases, before being sidetracked by the sample he’s working with. “Oh good job _mon bébé,_ polyps out!”

Fleury stifles a laugh. “See, I told you,” he whispers to Zhenya. “You’re within your rights to mock him mercilessly.”

Zhenya watches Letang, dark, sleek head bent over his work. “It’s fine,” he says, and smiles. “I understand.”

Fleury knocks their shoulders together companionably. Comforted, Zhenya gets back to work.

 

* * *

 

They’re finishing up last minute tasks before they start flying out. Letang and Fleury—

He really, really should stop thinking of them that way.

Kris and Marc-Andre.

Kris and Marc-Andre are suffused with excitement about returning home to their families. Zhenya has accidentally turned up in the background of enough Skype calls home that when Veronique calls as Marc-Andre is packing to leave, she greets Zhenya warmly as well.

“You should visit sometime!” she tells him, and Marc-Andre sits upright.

“You should! he exclaims. “You have some time before you, uh, need to be in Labrador. Come stay with us! Stretch out those savings a little bit.”

Zhenya feels relief sweep through him. “Really?”

“Really,” Vero says with a warm smile. “We have a guest room.”

That night, like he does every night, Zhenya checks the satellite data right before he falls asleep, to check where Sid and the whales are. The tags pinged next to each other, right where they should be.

It’s the first night since Sid left that he falls asleep with some measure of peace.

 

* * *

 

After that it’s a whirlwind of packing, changing flight details, and trying to explain to his parents over terrible quality video chat that he’s resigning his tenure track position and moving, jobless, to Canada for the foreseeable future.

His mother is just upset but his father gives him a long, assessing look and asks: “So. What is their name?”

Zhenya is almost relieved. “Sid. His name is Sid.”

His mother closes his eyes at the pronoun. They know about his bisexuality and what it would mean if he ever got serious about a man. He knows how much they love him and yet how worried the political and social climate in Russian make them.

“Does he make you happy?” His mother asks, her voice wobbly.

“So happy, Mama,” Zhenya says. Because it’s true.

It’s all she needs to hear. “Alright. Be happy, baby, and be safe. And send me a picture of this boy, I want to see him.”

He sends her a carefully selected and cropped photo of him and Sid, cut off well before Sid’s waist, his webbed hands hidden and his mouth closed over his sharp canine teeth. Kris had taken it as they sat on the boat, Zhenya with his hands raised as he explained something, Sid gazing at his face with an expression that manages to be focused and warm all at once.

“Oh Zhenya,” his mother texts him after he sends it. “He loves you so much. I can see it so clearly. I’d love to meet him someday.”

“I’d like that too,” Zhenya replies, and hopes it will be possible one day.

 

* * *

  

Most of the time he’s staying with Vero and Marc-Andre he works feverishly on his paper about whale vocalization, just to have it out of the way. The rest of the time, he’s organizing the massive amounts of data they have on Sid, from video footage to field notes to all the teaching materials they’ve amassed.

Marc-Andre helps him whenever he’s free, and Kris comes over often to lend a hand as well. Zhenya feels bad as they hole up in Marc-Andre’s home office, leaving their bemused wives talking in the living room.

“Maybe…” he says to them both. “Maybe it’s okay. To tell Vero and Cath. I know was my idea not to tell, and I’m so thankful you do for me. But maybe won’t hurt, to let them know.”

“Oh thank god,” Marc-Andre cries, and drapes himself dramatically over the table, dislodging about three carefully sorted stacks of paper. “It’s been killing me not to tell her.” He take a deep breath as if to start shouting for his wife but Kris plasters a hand over his mouth.

“For fuck’s sake. Let’s get some basic data together and wait until all the babies are in bed, at least.”

They edit together a Cliff’s Notes string of video clips, and get ready to let the women in on the secret.

 

* * *

 

“So,” Kris says, when they gather in the Letang living room that night. “We, us and Evgeni, have been working on something special. We weren’t sure how much was safe to tell to whom, but. You both obviously deserve to know what’s happened this summer.”

Cath and Vero exchange glances, and then turn back to Kris, standing in front of the TV where they’ve hooked up Zhenya’s laptop.

“We knew something was up,” Cath says. “Just not what.”

“Okay, so.” Kris explains. It started when this guy-” he points the remote he’s holding at Zhenya. “Found some weird noises on his hydrophone recordings, and we invited ourselves over to help investigate.”

“Coral so boring, need distract,” Zhenya says with faux sympathetic understanding.

“Shhhh, you,” Kris continues. “So we took a boat out, put the hydrophones back in. This is what we heard.” He plays the audio. Cath and Vero look at each other, clearly unsettled.

“Just wait,” Kris says, and plays the footage of the first time Zhenya saw Sid.

It’s strange, to see everything unwind on the television, like some kind of film. To hear the stunned gasps of the women, and to imagine what all of this looks like to someone seeing it for the first time.

“Oh my god,” Vero breathes, hand hovering in front of her mouth. Cath’s eyes are wide as saucers.

They’ve got footage from the time they started teaching Sid to the time his ASL was nearly fluent. Like this, Zhenya can also see how Sid looked at him, from the start. With fascination, then with affection, then with something more. He can see the same progression bloom in his own face.

Cath gasps at the next clip, one Marc-Andre or Kris must have taken when Zhenya wasn’t looking. In it, he’s leaning over the side of the boat, and Sid has raised himself in the water to meet him. It’s the pure, naked _love_ in Sid’s eyes that makes Zhenya’s breath catch, and makes him feel like he’s dived deep, water pressure pushing in on his chest.

He doesn’t feel like he deserves that look.

When all the clips are finished playing, the women sit back, stunned and speechless. After a long moment, Vero turns and looks at Zhenya.

“You, and he?” she asks, clearly not sure she should ask.

Zhenya pulls his shell necklace out from under his shirt. “Yes. He’s— yes. We’re.” He can’t finish.

“Ah,” she breathes, and to his surprise, she gets up and comes over to wrap her arms around him.

“That must be hard,” she says, and Zhenya buries his head in her shoulder. She smells of lavender laundry detergent and peach shampoo. He hadn’t known he needed the hug and the acknowledgement of what he’s going through, until this moment.

Vero takes his face in her hands, and behind her Cath gives them a still-slightly-dazed smile. “You’ll be okay,” she tells him. “What happens next?”

 

* * *

  

What happened next, is Zhenya books a ticket to Newfoundland, and keeps watching the satellite feed, and gets used to missing Sid the way humans adapt to any kind of pain.


	10. Chapter 10

                                          

 

Bringing Vero and Cath in on the entire thing proves to be a godsend, and Cath makes it her mission to help Zhenya prepare to try and find work in the Maritimes. She sits down with Zhenya and spends hours helping him translate some of his more celebrated papers and articles into English. He does the basic translation and she refines the grammar and the syntax.

“I’m learning so much about marine mammal behavior,” she laughs. When he tries to thank her she waves it off. “I’m supposed to be taking it really easy, with the baby coming so soon. This is keeping me from losing my mind out of boredom, frankly.”

She’s late in her last trimester, belly swollen and heavy. Zhenya knows she’s probably incredibly uncomfortable most of the time. “You saint, too good for Kris,” he only half-jokes, much as he likes Kris.

“Oh, and doesn’t he know it,” she twinkles, and grins cheekily at her husband as he comes in carefully balancing a plate of doctor-approved snacks.

“Don’t I know what” Kris asks, leaning down to kiss her bright hair.

“Don’t know anything,” Zhenya grumbles, to cover up how much their devoted rapport affects him.

Fuck, he misses Sid.

 

* * *

 

By the time his CV is ready to start sending out, Magda and Sid are somewhere off the coast of Virginia.

The closer they get the more Zhenya’s restlessness sharpens. He buries himself in his research, but Vero seems to know just when he’s ready to tear his hair out.

“Take a baby,” she tells him, and hands Scarlett or Estelle off to him. He’s happy to babysit, after all she and her husband are doing for him. And the kids are sweethearts.

Somehow, time passes and Magda and Sid draw ever nearer.

 

* * *

 

A cold call to the Memorial University of Newfoundland miraculously leads to him being invited to speak to the biology department chair via Skype.

“Your credentials are impressive, Dr. Malkin,” he says. “But I’m told you held a secure position in a prestigious university in Russia. Why here, and why now?”

Zhenya answers as best as he can. “Focus for last couple years has been Atlantic humpback population. This area one of the best places to study. Was here last summer, tagging whales for research study. But that’s not biggest reason.” He pauses, and gathers his words.

“Political climate in Russia is… difficult. There are laws about what they call, ‘propaganda.’ And this winter, I meet someone who live in this area. Someone that is not safe to be with in Russia.”

“Ah,” the man says, understanding dawning in his face. “Well, you know as well as I that the university hiring process works in cycles, and that it’s not the time of year we’re looking to hire new faculty.”

“I know,” Zhenya says, heart sinking.

“But,” the man continues. “I’ve looked over your body of work. It’s extremely impressive. We host a lot of different visiting researchers at the Ocean Sciences Center. I’d like to work something out with you. And in terms of next year, I’m very interested in expanding our course offerings regarding marine mammal studies, if the university can be made to agree.”

Zhenya ends the meeting elated and grateful.

 

* * *

 

They have a celebratory dinner after that.

“And another thing,” Marc-Andre says as they discuss Zhenya’s work opportunities. “If Sid says yes to making this public, you could probably have any position or facilities you wanted, anywhere.”

“ _ If _ ,” Zhenya stresses. “Up to Sid. And I’m think about this a lot. If this doesn’t work out, can just work on fishing boat or some other job like that. Anything, so I’m close.” Cath smiles and pats his hand.

“Explain it to me again,” Vero asks. “Why tell anyone, ever? Wouldn’t they just, I don’t know, put him a lab somewhere?”

Zhenya feels a wave of revulsion shudder through him. “No. Never. Die before I let happen.”

“Yeah,” Marc-Andre says, jaw set, his normally impish expression serious and set like iron. “But it might… change things. Force the hands of organizations like the U.N. Create a global movement towards conservation. Wake people up.”

They’re all silent for a moment. They all have the images to draw on, the dire statistics and the horrifying data that keep them up at night. But Sid didn’t ask to be an ambassador for his species. The decision has to be his.

 

* * *

 

Kris’s in-laws own a sailboat. She sails best with a crew of three, so Zhenya, Marc-Andre, and Vero start taking her out on shakedown voyages into the Bay of Fundy while Kris stays behind with Cath, whose due date is approaching rapidly. 

They figure the boat’s the best way to find Sid once Magda reaches her feeding grounds. Her top speed is about eight knots, or fifteen miles per hour. Just fast enough to catch up with Magda if she isn’t moving at her full traveling speed.

They take a longer trip all the way around the southern end of Nova Scotia, to Halifax. The open water of the Atlantic is rough, nothing like the tropics. But they work together well, and start making plans for the long sail up the coast followed by the more than sixteen hour crossing to Newfoundland. 

They spend late nights with charts all over the table, laptops spilling pools of blue light. Every night, Zhenya checks the data to watch Sid’s progress. 

Closer and closer.

* * *

 

Zhenya nearly loses his mind when Magda lingers near Cape Cod. Then, before he knows it, the tags ping within a day’s sail of Cape Sable Island, right off the southern tip of Nova Scotia. He wants to take the boat out right away to chase them, but he knows it’s foolishness, putting them all at risk.

But they start packing, and prepare to follow, up past Cape Breton and into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

 

* * *

 

Two days before they set sail, Cath delivers a baby girl. She and Kris name her Victoria. Zhenya goes with Marc-Andre and his family to visit, bringing along a little stuffed whale, because, why not.

Cath is exhausted but radiant, and Zhenya almost can’t look at Kris’s face as he watches his son kiss his new little sister’s downy head.

“I can’t help but feel that it’s…not good luck, exactly,” Cath says, when Zhenya is given the chance to hold Victoria. She’s so tiny and so light in his arms. “But just… it’s significant somehow. Her coming now.”

“Life,” Zhenya says, staring down as the baby blinks hazy blue eyes and yawns a miniature, perfect yawn. “New things starting.”

Cath smiles at him. “Exactly.”

Zhenya takes a dozen pictures for Sid.

 

* * *

 

The Atlantic feels like it wants to fight them,  either to cast them right out of its storm-shattered currents again or drag them down in pieces. But Vero and Marc-Andre have been raised on the water, and Zhenya’s learned fast. Magda’s slowing, moving less linearly each day. She’s stopping to feed in the rich waters, replenishing the weight she lost nursing Pasha in the Caribbean.  

 

* * *

 

The day they come within a mile of the last satellite ping, the sky is gray but calm. Zhenya stays topside, binoculars trained on the horizon, watching for spouts. They put a speaker into the water, playing a looped tape of Zhenya’s voice. When they made the recording, Zhenya was too embarrassed to speak in English, so it’s in Russian. He talks to Sid, telling him how much he misses him, how the months without him dragged.

And then they wait.

 

* * *

 

There’s a thud on the hull. Splashing at the waterline. Zhenya’s binoculars clatter to the deck, he lurches for the rail, and Marc-Andre has to haul on the back of his jacket so that he doesn’t slip and go overboard.

Sid.

There he is, reaching his hands out so Zhenya and Marc-Andre can haul him up. There’s ice-cold water streaming off him but Zhenya kneels on the deck and wraps him in his arms anyway, buries his face in Sid’s neck, can’t stop the hot tears coursing down his face.

Until this very moment, a small, deep part of him had been certain that they’d never find him.

Sid’s making a low keening sound deep in his chest, and his hands are clutching at Zhenya’s jacket like he’s afraid he’s going to disappear. They move to the back of Zhenya’s head, to his waist, back to clutching at his jacket. He wrenches loose, but it’s only so he can take Zhenya’s face in his hands and kiss him, little biting kisses all over his face, followed by a deep press of his lips to Zhenya’s.

“Sid,” Zhenya says brokenly. Sid murmurs back the sound he makes for Zhenya’s name. His eyes are dark and wild. He leans forward and sets his  _ teeth _ to the base of Zhenya’s throat, holding him in place.

When he pulls back there’s blood on his lips. His sharp canines scraped Zhenya’s skin.

_ Sorry sorry sorry,  _ he signs wildly, but Zhenya shakes his head. He leans forward, and kisses Sid in the same place, right above the shine of his gold chain. He bites down too, and Sid jerks against him.

_ Mine yes mine  _ Sid declares more than asks.  _ Mine _ .

_ Yes _ , Zhenya says, and rests his forehead against Sid’s.  _ Yes _ .


	11. Chapter 11

 

                                

 

Sid is disinclined to let go of Zhenya long enough to say much, but he greets Marc-Andre and lights up to see Vero.

_You’re F’s breath-person_ he says

“Oh,” Vero breathes, after Marc-Andre translates. Ever since Sid appeared she’s been wearing a look of shell-shocked wonder.

“I’m Vero,” she tells Sid, and carefully signs her name. Sid smiles and repeats it back politely but then nuzzles back into Zhenya’s neck

“So…what was that, exactly?”  Marc-Andre says. “The—“ He gestures vaguely at the scrape on Zhenya’s throat.

“Not really sure,” Zhenya admits. He’s got one hand in Sid’s hair and one at his waist. With a little bit of wriggling Sid has managed to get himself into Zhenya’s lap and has tucked his head under Zhenya’s chin. He’s fucking heavy and both of Zhenya’s legs are asleep, but Zhenya’s sure as hell not moving him.

“Huh,” Marc-Andre says. “Might be a good idea to ask him about that later. Just in case.”

  

* * *

 

They pull into a quiet little cove where they can drop anchor. They bring out one of their waterproof charts and start going over it with Sid. He recognizes the different landmasses, and is able to indicate where the whales are feeding and where the fishing is good.

_My family is here, often,_ he says, indicating a fairly extensive stretch of coastline and open water. He looks at them all.

_I say this, you keep—_ he makes the gesture of taking an object and cradling it close to his chest, like it’s precious.

_We won’t tell other people,_ Zhenya promises.

_How many are you?_ Marc-Andre asks, and Sid looks at him for a long moment.

_Less than far before_ he says, and Zhenya tightens the arm he has around Sid’s waist. Sid leans back into him.

Zhenya shows him the location of the university.

_I’ll be here_ he tells Sid. _To do science._

_Not far?_ Sid asks, his face lighting up.

_No_ Zhenya replies, and presses a kiss to Sid’s temple. Sid makes one of the trilling sounds that mean he’s happy, but Zhenya would have known just from the brilliant smile he gives him.

  

* * *

  

There’s a lot to catch up on. Magda and Pasha made the trip well, Sid recounts. They were apparently stalked by a pod of orcas for a brief period, but Magda and the baby are strong and healthy and had been able to outpace them. Zhenya’s blood runs cold at the very idea and he has to bury his face in Sid’s still-damp hair.

_I see my family_ Sid also tells them. _Everyone is well, it was good to see them._ He pauses, hands floating in the air for a second before he resumes signing. _I tell them I have a breath-person.  I am not one._

Zhenya isn’t sure what he means. Sid looks a little frustrated with not being able to translate to his liking.

_What is ‘not one’_ Zhenya asks.

Sid gestures at himself, then at Zhenya in a kind of circular motion. “You and me,” he must mean. He leans over and thumbs at the scrape his teeth left on Zhenya’s throat. _You are mine. I am mine to you._

_Yours_ Zhenya explains. _I am yours. You are mine._

_I told them,_ Sid says, eyes shining. _They were happy. They know I don’t like one._

_Being alone,_ Zhenya explains. _Being one is being alone._

_No. I don’t like that. Then I tell them you are human_ Sid continues, and Zhenya feels sick. Sid’s face is so serious.

“And?” Zhenya says aloud.

_If I find you again, they want to see you._

“Oh, shit,” Marc-Andre says.

Yeah. Oh-fucking-shit.

 

* * *

  

It’s a week before Sid brings news on his daily return to the boat.

_Today_ , he tells Zhenya, and Zhenya goes cold. And yet at the same time, his pulse is racing with the awe-inspiring gift of encountering an entire mer clan.

He and Sid sit on the boat side by side, Zhenya kneeling and Sid sitting with his tail dragging in the water. The wait is a long one. Sid stares silently out at the horizon, and winds his fingers through Zhenya’s.

Finally, Sid straightens up, suddenly alert.

They’re coming Sid says, and when Zhenya looks down into the deep water below them, the hair stands up on the back of his neck.

He can see the pale blurs of their faces as they come up from the depths, and for the first time since his initial glimpse of Sid, Zhenya feels that cold prey impulse latch claws into the base of his skull, where his deepest instincts live.

They surface in a loose half circle:  wild, wary faces and wet, streaming hair. Zhenya can see Sid in them— a woman here with his eyes, a man there with his nose. A girl with pale hair but the same set to her mouth.

She’s the one who ventures closest, right up to the side of the boat. Zhenya recognizes the sound of Sid’s real name when she speaks.

Sid answers her, then turns to Zhenya.

_My sister,_ he tells Zhenya. He gestures at his stomach and then makes the sign for “same.” “Womb-sharer,” Zhenya supposes.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Zhenya tells her, and to his surprise, as Sid translates she cocks her head to one side and smirks, the only expression besides mute hostility he’s seen so far from any of the mer-people.

She says something to Sid, opening and closing one hand like he’s seen people do accompanied with the phrase, “blah blah blah.”

Sid laughs. _She says you’re like a fish, opening and closing your mouth. Like a_ — he pauses, then makes a gesture, flattening his hands out and making an undulating motion. _The ones like this, that live on the bottom._

“A halibut?” Zhenya asks incredulously. And despite his nerves, he has to laugh, which sets Sid off into a fit of what Zhenya can only imagine is giggling because Sid’s sister stares at her brother like she’s never seen him before.

She turns back to Zhenya, eyes narrow. She motions for him to come closer. He leans down, but jumps when the entire circle of mer-people draw in.

The girl lays one cold hand on his jaw, and tilts his neck to better show the necklace hanging there, the one that Sid made him. She takes a long look at it, then another into Zhenya’s eyes.

Her’s are gray-blue, and they look like if she smiled, they might crinkle up the same way Sid’s do. She is not smiling now.

She speaks, low and angry and rough in her throat. Sid taps Zhenya’s arm to make him look at him for the translation.

_If you hurt me or any of the clan,_ Sid signs. _She will stop your breathing in the water and let the sharks tear the food off your body._

It’s a protective impulse Zhenya can understand perfectly, even if Sid has to circumlocute for “drown” and “flesh.”  

He meets the girl’s gaze evenly. “Yes,” is all he says to her, and waits for Sid to translate.

One of the mer in the circle says something, and Sid smiles. _You have strong insides._

_Brave_ ? Zhenya asks. _I’m not brave. I’m terrified._

The translation earns him a response from the woman with Sid’s eyes.

_Why_? Sid tells him.

_Because you’re his family_ Zhenya says. _Because you are everything to him, and because he loves you. And because I love him._

She moves closer, next to the girl. Zhenya can see so much of Sid in her. She has to be—

_Are you his mother?_ he asks.

_Yes_ comes the answer. _And he is my life._

_I feel the same_ he tells her, and her face crumples. She reaches forward, and brings Zhenya’s forehead down to rest against hers. She’s making a keening sound that makes Zhenya’s heart feel like it’s breaking.

_I’m very afraid,_ she says through Sid. _This will be so difficult. But, he is so happy._

Zhenya presses his forehead against hers and feels a strangled sob work it’s way up his throat. In his mind’s eye he can see his own mother, afraid for her son, different in a world where so many would hate him for it.

The aching sorrow in Sid’s mother’s voice tears at him. No mother wants a dangerous, difficult path for her child. And the truth of the matter is that loving Zhenya will be exactly that for Sid.

She gasps, and touches the tears on his cheeks.

_What is this?_ Sid asks for her.

Zhenya explains to her: _When there’s too much feeling inside us, it comes out of our eyes._

_Seawater_ she says, after touching her finger to her lips. She half turns to the rest of the mer-people.

_There’s ocean inside of him._

They come up to Zhenya then, one at a time. Their faces are drawn, and Zhenya can tell they are uncertain and that not all their fears have been alleviated. But they still come, and they each make the same brief gesture of respect and acknowledgement: a fleeting touch of two fingers to the throat. The girl and the man with Sid’s nose rest their foreheads briefly against Zhenya’s instead. Sid’s sister, Sid’s father. The rest of the clan moves away but Sid’s immediate family lingers.

_This is my family_ Sid signs, eyes and hand-movements fierce. He gestures at them, including Zhenya.

All _of my family._


	12. Chapter 12

                              

 

 

 

 

 

They have some conversations that are a long time coming.

_What is the sign for day not stopping_ Sid asks.

Zhenya is confused. _I don’t understand._

_Day day day day day day day day_ Sid signs. _Very many. Not stopping._

_Forever_ Zhenya tells him, and has to look the sign for it up on his phone.

_F and V are together_ Sid says, clearly working up to something. _For humans, forever?_

Zhenya doesn’t know where he’s going with this but he feels a sudden swell of anguish at the idea that he might be about to find out that mer don’t practice monogamy.

_Yes_ he says. _Not always, but if it’s very good, they will stay together forever._

_You and me_ Sid says. _Are we together, forever? Only us?_

“Do..do you want that?” Zhenya asks, heart in his throat.

Sid gives him an “of course” look. _Want most. You and me. You are mine. I bit you. I’m yours, you bit me._

“Ohhh,” Zhenya says aloud. Flower was right. _That was a sign for us being together forever?_

_Yes_ Sid says simply. Then he goes a little red. _Sorry for not saying. So happy to see you, didn’t want to leave again. Wanted us, forever._

Zhenya leans forward to gather Sid to him, kissing his lips and his neck, setting his teeth just above the hollow between his collarbones. Sid keens, and his tail thrashes against the fiberglass of the boat with a thud.

Zhenya laughs softly into Sid’s wet hair, pleased, and draws back, to an outraged noise from Sid.

_Come here,_ he signs imperiously, and grins, baring his teeth. _Come here. Your time._

_Turn_ Zhenya corrects, but tilts his head to give Sid the access he wants just the same.

 

* * *

 

Zhenya meets with the dean of science at MUN, and leaves hopeful. He spends some time walking around St. John’s, just thinking. Just because he’s upending his entire life gladly doesn’t mean the transition will be easy.

He likes the city. Many of the streets are lined with wood-framed houses in bright colors and crisp white trim. It shouldn’t look right, a bright blue house next to a bright yellow one, followed by red, and orange, and mint green. But it does. He makes his way from MUN to the downtown area by the harbor. He turns onto a street with a row of quaint little shops, and something sparkling in a window catches his eye.

It’s a display of jewelry in the window of a shop called The Golden Tulip. He stands there on the sidewalk and thinks, why not?

 

* * *

 

The webbing between Sid’s fingers means he can’t wear a ring as it’s normally worn, but he preens when Zhenya slips the ring onto the chain he wears around his neck. He hooks his chin over Zhenya’s shoulder and watches as Zhenya slides his own into his ring finger. Sid takes his hand, turning it over and examining the ring, smiling as the little diamonds in it catch the light. Zhenya hadn’t been able to resist getting them rings with a little flash to them.

He’d explained the tradition to Sid, who had loved the idea.

_Now you’re mine in human too_ he says, and gently takes Zhenya’s earlobe between his teeth. Zhenya is discovering that now that they’re, for all intents and purposes, married, Sid’s been a lot more...mouthy. A new level of physical intimacy and affection for bonded couples, he suspects. He’s all for it.

He sends a photo of the rings  to the group chat he has with Kris, Cath, Marc-Andre, and Vero. He gets back a garbled chorus ranging from suggestive emojis (Kris) to sincere congratulations (Vero).

“It looks good on you both,” Cath tells him, later.

“What does? The ring?” he asks.

“Being together. Being happy. “

 

* * *

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**A Year Later**

  


His colleagues, whenever they find out where he lives, always shake their heads and ask “why he’d want to live so goddamn far out.” Zhenya just smiles, and says he likes the quiet.

The truth is that the hour long commute is well worth it. The house sits alone on a quiet, sheltered little inlet, and Sid says that the fishing is good. There’s a dock that extends out into the water, and every day when he comes home Zhenya walks out there, and Sid is waiting.

_How was the science?_ he always asks, eyes laughing. _Is the world safe?_

“Not yet, baby,” he’ll answer. He speaks a lot of his native tongue to Sid these days. They’re working on the Russian— Sid wants to learn how to understand it now that his English comprehension is fairly good.

_I like how you sound when you speak it_ he told Zhenya when they first started. _Like water, like the wind. Like a storm._

And Zhenya had kissed him and kissed him, and then he had promised he’d do his best to teach him.

There’s a boathouse built over the water, but Zhenya doesn’t use it as one. When the weather is bad, or it’s too cold, he spends a lot of time in there. Sid can surface inside, and can keep Zhenya company while he works on his research.

Flower asked Zhenya once, concern evident even over the grainy Skype feed, if he was alright with the limitations of being with Sid

“There are a lot of things you’ll never get to do,” Flower had said. “And it’s okay to be sad about that, you know.”

Zhenya had to smile a little. “We can do more normal stuff than you think. No long walks on the beach but those actually boring anyway.” He thinks of last night, when he’d had Sid tucked under his arm as they’d watched Splash together on Zhenya’s laptop. They are, at Sid’s insistence, watching every movie or television show about mermaids Zhenya can get his hands on. Sid thinks they’re _hilarious_ and usually laughs himself sick.

He’d been a little pensive after the ending of Splash, though.

_I can’t grow feet for you or take you underwater with me_ he’d said.

Zhenya had kissed him breathless and asked him, if given the opportunity, would he change anything about Zhenya?

_No!_ Sid had said, indignant. _I like you just the way you are. Even if your feet are unholy abominations._

He’s been obsessed with the dictionary lately, and has been experimenting with vocabulary every chance he gets. Zhenya had to buy him three different word-of-the day calendars when one wasn’t enough.

_And I like you just the way you are too,_ Zhenya had told him back. _I wouldn’t change a thing._

“Why are you smiling like that?” Fleury had complained. “Ew, are you thinking about _sex_ ? I do _not_ want to know.”

He hadn’t been, but now he was thinking about how Sid had kissed him after he’d said that and had pulled him down and—

“Stop. It,” Fleury pleaded, and Zhenya laughed.

“It’s not like marry human guy, no. And some things more hard or more difficult. But, you know in all fairytale it’s like this, you know? Biggest dream is find someone who love you this much. So many people never find. Never thought I find. Got so lucky. Sometimes I wish I can just take him to meet family, or travel with him. But almost never. Too happy just have someone to love like that.”

And Fleury’s eyes went soft, just like they always do when he thinks about Vero. “Yeah, you’re right. Couple of damn lucky sons of bitches, aren’t we?”

“Most lucky.”

 

* * *

 

Zhenya’s stomach is in knots. Sid’s resting his head on Zhenya’s shoulder, waiting patiently for the Skype call to connect.

He’s sent his parents photos, he’s talked and talked about Sid in phone calls and letters. But they haven’t seen him, not really.

“Ah, baby!” His mother exclaims when the call connects. She and his father crowd close to the camera, smiling. “And Sid!” She raises her hands and clumsily signs hello. Sid smiles, mouth closed over his teeth.

Zhenya looks down at him. He’s nervous, hands twisting in his lap, tail flukes twitching. They’d had a plan for this. He wasn’t going to show his hands, wasn’t going to smile with his teeth showing. He’s even wearing one of Zhenya’s t-shirts in an effort to look human from the waist up.

Zhenya’s heart breaks a little. Sid’s not human. He shouldn’t have to pretend to be something he’s not.

“Sid,” he says gently, and Sid looks up at him. He looks from Sid’s puzzled hazel eyes, to his parents, smiling delightedly at finally meeting, for all intents and purposes, their son-in-law. He takes a breath. He signs quickly to Sid.

_What if we tell them the truth?_ he asks. Sid’s eyes go wide. He stares at Zhenya, then nods, jerkily. Mer don’t cry, but he starts to go red around the eyes like he always does when he’s feeling overcome with a strong emotion.

“We have something to tell you,” he says, and reaches down to thread his fingers through Sid’s. He picks up the laptop with his other hand. Sid’s grip on his hand gets tighter, his knuckles white.

Zhenya quickly kisses the side of his head, and then tilts the camera, panning it down Sid’s body, where his tail lies along the boathouse floor, twitching nervously.

There’s a long moment of silence.

“What—” his mother says faintly.

“My god,” breathes his father. “Is...is that real?”

Zhenya doesn’t answer, just sends them a video he’d taken just the week before, of Sid and Pasha swimming together. He’d been in the water with them, in a drysuit and scuba gear. Sid and Pasha had played a sort of tag, and Sid had eventually swum away from the baby whale to come smile at Zhenya, and tug him over to pet Pasha’s side.

He watches his parents watch the footage, eyes flicking back and forth, mouths falling open.

It ends, and they both look back at the camera, stunned.

“That’s him,” Zhenya tells them. “That’s my Sid.” He can see, in the little window showing him and Sid, that Sid is looking anxiously from Zhenya’s face to the screen.

“That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” his mother says, and starts to cry. His father puts his arm around her, and wipes at his own eyes.

“Incredible,” he tells Zhenya. “Only you, son. Only you. Welcome to the family, Sid.”

Zhenya grins and pulls Sid closer, kissing his cheek. Sid makes a soft, hurt-sounding noise.

_Hello_ he signs at the screen, no longer hiding his hands from view. _Hello, hello, hello._

 

* * *

  


Telling Zhenya’s parents is a watershed. He and Sid talk it over, and they decide to ask their friends to visit, bringing their children. Plans are made for Kris and Marc-Andre to bring their families to visit in the summer, and for all of them together to start discussing even bigger things.

“What you tell the kids?” Zhenya asks, during a logistics phone call with Vero.

“Not everything until we’re there, i think,” Vero says. “We told them Uncle Evgeni’s husband is very special and very different, and that he’s a secret, for now. Victoria and Étienne are too little to worry about, of course.”

Zhenya smiles at the mention of Vero and Marc-Andre’s new infant son. “How he doing?”

“Finally sleeping better,” Vero says, smiling. “Is Sid excited?”

“So excited,” Zhenya laughs. Sid loves babies, mer or human. Zhenya keeps a cell phone for Sid in the boathouse, mostly so their friends can send him baby pictures.

“Is that Evgeni?” He hears Marc-Andre yell in the background of the call. “Tell him I put The Little Mermaid on the iPad for the girls, special for this trip!”

“Worst,” Zhenya groans.

 

* * *

  


Sid is beside himself with excitement about the impending visit of the Fleury and Letang children. He’s been bringing rocks and shells back to the boathouse all week, only to reject them and go back for different ones. He makes Zhenya bring him spools of the colored cord he likes to work with, and spends several evenings making little bracelets and necklaces with it, delicate and pretty, hung with tiny white shells. Everyone is getting one, apparently, with the most elaborate reserved for the women.

Zhenya has come to learn that mer society is fairly matriarchal, and he smiles to himself at Sid’s nerves about making a good impression on Cath and making sure Vero still likes him.

“Baby, please relax,” he begs Sid. “You know they love you.”

_And they will love me even more if these are perfect,_ Sid signs peevishly. _Bring me more of the blue-green embroidery floss when you come home from work tomorrow._

“Yes, yes,” Zhenya says, pretending to be put upon, and busses the top of Sid’s head.

 

* * *

 

Zhenya hadn't been ready. Not in the slightest. Not ready for the the tentative delight in Sid’s eyes, not ready for the transfixed wonder on the faces of the children.

Not ready for the sight of Sid dandling little Victoria on his lap, making her shake with infectious giggles with a series of silly noises.

They’re sitting around the boathouse, the lights Zhenya’s strung up inside sparkling on the water. A couple of Sid’s family made an appearance, and Sid is kept busy translating for everyone. He has a hectic flush on his cheeks, and he can’t stop smiling. He takes Zhenya’s breath away.

Everyone has been given their jewelry, and Sid had been so proud at the praise heaped on him for it.

The shells on Cath’s necklace jingle softly as she sits next to Sid’s sister at the edge of the water, helping her learn how to do the complicated braid Cath’s wearing in her hair. Sid’s gruff father is smiling and showing Alex and Scarlett some game with mussel shells, and Estelle is learning how to do some of the mer knotwork from Sid’s mother.

“This is good,” Vero says, settling next to Sid and Zhenya. She sets little Étienne into Zhenya’s arms. Victoria burbles and pats at Sid’s face. Sid imitates the noises she’s making, and peppers little kisses all over her chubby cheeks.

“It is,” Zhenya answers her. “Better than I ever thought it be. Even my parents. They maybe come visit next year.”

Vero smiles and knocks their shoulders together companionably. “We’re thinking about relocating. There’s an opening at the university, and we’d like to be close if there are big plans on the horizon. I know that Cath and Kris feel the same way.”

Zhenya is so filled with gratitude that he can’t speak for a long moment.

“Thank you,” he says at last. “We gonna need you.”

“We’ll be here,” Vero promises, and bends to tickle her son's tummy.

Sid leans over and nuzzles happily into Zhenya’s neck. Zhenya has slowly and laboriously been trying to identify the different words of mer speak, and so he catches the deep buzz that means “happy” and the liquid fall of sound that means “I love you.”

“Love you too, baby,” he tells Sid.

 

* * *

 

After the children are asleep they all have a long talk together.

Sid’s clan is frustrated with the lack of good hunting this year, and after Sid had come home exhausted from spending an entire day and a night trying to cut a panicking whale loose from a discarded trawl net with the other hunters from his clan, he’d told Zhenya that they’re fed up. They’ve been talking about making themselves known, through Sid, due to his understanding of human speech and connection to Zhenya.

Zhenya takes Sid’s hands in his own when Sid explains it all. Way back at the very beginning, he and Marc-Andre and Kris had decided the decision had to be Sid’s. Now that the day is here, Zhenya is terrified. Sid’s not a research subject, or a natural wonder. He’s the other half of Zhenya’s soul.

He doesn’t always spend the night in the boathouse, but he does that night, clinging to Sid and listening to the infinitely slow rhythm of his sleeping breaths.

 

* * *

 

They prepare. They find a journalist they like. She’s a woman named Jennifer Bullano and she writes excellent op-ed pieces for The Globe and Mail with the kind of perspective they’re looking for.

They go endlessly back and forth on the options. Tell Zhenya’s colleagues at MUN first, to lend credence to their efforts? Just upload a video to YouTube? How would one even go about contacting the UN, if they decided to go that route?

In the end, they decide that they can trust the people Zhenya works with. He contacts them, tells them he has some researcher friends from New Brunswick in and that he thinks it would be fun for them all to meet and talk shop.

“And you can meet my husband,” he says. He can’t help it, he feels a thrill of glee when he thinks about the looks on their faces when they see his beautiful Sid.

 

* * *

 

“Well, Evgeni, it’s about time,” his department chair says heartily as he gets out of his car. “What a ride out! I don’t know how you do it day in and day out.”

“Lots of audiobook,”  Zhenya says. “Sid—my husband, is down by boathouse. It’s this way.”

It’s late in the day and the sun is gilding the water. The lights are on in the boathouse, and there are shrieks of laughter from the kids as the older ones play tag on the glassy slope that leads from the house to the water.

“I’m starting to see the appeal,” says the head of the Ocean Sciences Department. “This is beautiful.”

Evgeni murmurs his polite thanks and leads his colleagues down the dock.

As soon as the water below them is deep enough, Zhenya kneels on the rough boards of the dock. His colleagues exchange glances as he reaches down to splash at the water.

“Sid,”’ he calls. He grins when he sees the tell-tale ripple in the water.

There’s a rush of water as Sid heaves himself up into the dock, water sluicing down his body. He swings his tail up and onto the dock after himself.

“Oh. Oh my god,” Zhenya hears someone say faintly behind him. He smiles into the kiss hello he gives Sid. Sid purrs at him, deep in his chest.

Then he smiles up at Zhenya’s dumbstruck colleagues.

_Hello_ he signs. _My name is Sidney. Welcome to our home_. Zhenya translates for him.

“That isn’t, it can’t be—“ the department chair sputters. “That has to be a realistic—“

Sid raises an eyebrow and flicks his tail, letting it move in a way that clearly demonstrates how not-human his joints are.

“Oh,” the chair says, sounding faint. Sid grins at him, teeth on display.

_It’s nice to meet who Zhenya does the science with,_ he says in sign and mer.

“L— likewise,” says one of the women who heads up the harp seal program, after Zhenya translates.

“That vocalization—” breathes another, adjusting her glasses. “That’s incredible. How did you— wait. You called him your _husband_.”

_Yes_ , Sid says, and reaches up to thread his fingers through Zhenya’s, his free hand going to the ring hanging around his neck. _Zhenya is mine._

“I did,” Zhenya says, smiling down at Sid. “Come on— let me tell you everything.”

 

* * *

 

They meet Jen Bullano in a conference room at the university. She stares at all of them, then back at the projected video at the front of the room. They’ve just shown her the highlights, starting with that first video of Sid and Magda and ending with one featuring his entire clan outlining why they want to break their secrecy.

“This is…” she says, and her voice trails off. “If I wasn’t sitting in a roomful of scholars of this caliber I’d say I was being subjected to the most outrageous kind of hoax. As it is, I believe you enough to be persuaded to come along and meet them. For definitive proof.” Her gaze is sharp and clear, and Zhenya is both comforted by how capable she seems and a little terrified.

“Can do that,” Zhenya says.

 

* * *

 

Sid’s sister and Jen get along worrisomely well.

_That’s really scary_ Sid says, watching as Jen shows his sister something on her laptop and they both break into a fit of what can only be called straight-up cackling. Or as close as a mer person can come, anyway.

Jen’s practically moved into Zhenya’s guest room, and is working her way through an inadvisable amount of coffee as she works on the article. They have a lot of people coming in and out of their place these days, from Kris and Marc-Andre’s families to people from the university. They’re gearing up for the final push.

Jen’s editor has to be flown out before he’ll believe her completely, but after he meets the mer he tells them the front page is theirs whenever they’re ready. Sid’s family has made plans on where to hide if people come thronging to the Maritimes in order to gawk at them.

Their lives are going to change, and that’s frightening. But, Zhenya considers, thinking about the time before he moved to Newfoundland and when he thought he might lose Sid forever, it’s nothing they can’t weather together.

The night the Youtube video is to be posted and the story is set to run in the next day’s paper, Zhenya holds Sid close.

_Are you afraid?_ he asks him.

_It would be a lie to say no,_ Sid says. _But I’m not **very** afraid. This has to happen. And I trust our friends. And I love you. More than anything. _

Zhenya kisses him, deep and sweet.

_Ready_? he asks.

_Ready_ Sid answers.

Zhenya clicks the button that will post their uploaded video.

It takes a moment, but then it plays.

In it, Sid is sitting on their dock,  the sun glinting off his necklace and his water-slick tail.

_My human name is Sid,_ he signs in the video. _It will be difficult for you to believe I or my family exist. But we do. And we finally come forward to claim the rights you say belong to all people. I do not speak for all clans, but I speak for mine. You fill our water with trash, and sound, and poisons. For thousands of years we hid ourselves. But our children and our old ones suffer, and we’ve had enough. Listen to me, and to what I have to say._

 

_I have a voice, and I plan to use it._

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Writing this fic was a whirlwind journey that started as a short prompt for the Sidgeno Photo Challenge and spiraled into the longest draft I've ever completed. It's been written over a time of significant upheaval in my life and it was a project that was a great distraction and comfort. 
> 
> Many thanks to the people who sent me comments, reblogged, and liked the chapters posted to Tumblr. Your enthusiasm sustained me and is the reason this fic exists. 
> 
> Thank you so much to the GC and to the beta-ing help of [SecretSidgenoWriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsidgenowriter/pseuds/secretsidgenowriter) and [wearbear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhien)
> 
> You can find me as [knifeshoeoreofight](http://knifeshoeoreofight.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, and as @RainyForecast on Twitter. Come say hi!


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